Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Hairbows and Legos




This week's Works For Me Wednesday theme is about organization. Two things that were beginning to take over our house were Spice's hairbows and Sport's Legos. So here's how we got them under control.

For the hairbows (and other hair accessories), I found this idea on MeckMom.com.

 

MeckMom has lots of great tips. She originally called for using a shoe organizer for this purpose, but I found this all-purpose organizer at Dollar Tree and used it instead 'cuz I'm cheap. It's a little smaller than a shoe organizer would be, but it works for us. I added ribbons at the top to make it hang lower on the door so Spice would be able to reach almost everything, then we sorted all of the accessories by color. This is much easier than scrounging through a drawer stuffed full of bows, and Spice likes being able to find the right color pocket and reach right in and grab what she wants. Can't get much better organizing help than this for a buck.

Unfortunately, the Lego problem could not be solved for a buck, but after searching stores and the web for ideas for quite awhile, we found something that Sport and I are both happy with. This tool box came from Lowe's and was about $20. It's made by Stanley and has about 50 storage compartments intended for sorting nails, screws.... We spent hours, no DAYS, sorting Legos by type. Before this, we had all of the bricks sorted by color in cigar boxes we found at the local recycling center. This worked well for awhile, but the amount of Legos eventually outgrew the boxes. I found several "Lego Masters" online who store their pieces by type rather than color. The theory is it's much easier to find a red 1x1 brick in a pile of multicolored 1x1 bricks than it is in a pile of red bricks of all different sizes. Anyway, this box is cool because it can be completely unfolded giving easy access to every storage compartment at once and, it can be folded up when not in use (not like that ever happens around here) or to move from room to room. Sport and I like to call it his "briefcase" since he would love to one day head off to work at the Lego factory.

 
 
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To find out what works for others, head over to We Are That Family for Works For Me Wednesday.

7 comments:

Paula @ Organizing Tips For Moms said...

Love the Lego box!

Carissa Houston said...

Great ideas; we have lots of both too. We don't have any regular Legos yet since DS (read: DH) keeps buying Star Wars sets that have to stay separated or the world will end. That tool box is really cool though...maybe Santa will bring one with a big box of build-what-you-want-kid old fashioned Legos :)

The Activity Mom said...

Great ideas! You can do some serious lego building with that organization. =)

groovie mom said...

I used to be anal about keeping the sets together. Kept all the original boxes w/the instructions and the intention of keeping everything stored separately. Then one day I just realized that was going to be just about impossible. My son likes to combine all of his Star Wars stuff anyway to make new Star Wars stuff. Now we just keep the instructions for each kit.

Moore Minutes said...

This lego SOLUTION is PERFECT!! I can't thank you enough for posting this, lol. I am getting this asap. Maybe now I won't have to bite my tongue when stepping on a lego! Grr ;)

:) said...

I got one of these after seeing your post. It is so excellent for organizing those little lego pieces.

Megan said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I love your tool box idea. I'm sure I'll be needing more storage after Xmas.