{DIY} Toy Crate Covers!!

Two months ago I created these labels: Cars & Trucks, Music and Animals

At that time I also snuck off with three very ugly-looking, well-used milk crates; two from my father-in-law, and one from the basement (thank you hubby for letting me empty it for my own purposes!)

I had purchased three lovely bits of fabric (see above - SO cute!), and had such great intentions of sewing covers for my most unfortunate-looking crates.

But....

Time passed.

Other projects came and went.

Baby J made a lot of beautiful messes (and many not-so-beautiful messes too)....

And then finally it was time to clean up the mess.

(The beautiful mess, not the not-so-beautiful mess....those get cleaned every few hours).

I present to you a small organizing victory!

Covered Toy Crates!

I used the fantastic tutorial for "The Undercover Crate" found here, altered it to fit my crate, and worked until they were complete!  

The toy labels will be added once Baby J realizes that food is for eating and toys are for playing, not the other way around.

I am really enjoying the extra pop of colour in our living room, as well as the organization factor...but mostly the colour.  :)

Create your 'space' and love it!

I plan to link up to these great blogs:

Tip Junkie, Someday Crafts, Skip to My Lou, The Girl Creative, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Sew Much Ado, Polka Dots on Parade, Thrifty Decorating, House of Hepworths, My Simple Home Life, Homemaker in Heels, WhipperBerry, The Blackberry Vine

Coffee Table with a (re)Purpose

Near the end of this past summer, I was inspired by this photo on Pinterest:

With limited space in our family room for toys and books, I thought that this would be a great way to store our ever-growing collection of children's books.  (Just today I had to resist a great sale at the bookstore where Baby J and I like to go for walks.  Only $1 per book!  Maybe we will go for another walk tomorrow...)

But I digress.

Handsome hubby was kind enough to build me a nearly exact replica of the photo above.  Here he is in action:

- Hubby first sanded and painted our wooden spool.

- With the spool upside down, he then drilled holes just wide enough for the dowel to fit through.  He drilled fully through the bottom portion, and 3/4 of an inch into the top (so that the top surface of the spool was still solid).

- With his dowels cut to size (we cut 12 dowels to fit around a 94 inch circumference), he slid them into place and adhered them with a small amount of wood glue.
- He also drilled a small pilot hole and secured the dowels in place with a screw.
- A coat of paint over the dowels finished off the look.

To allow for easy movement on the floor in our family room (i.e. to allow for more play space on the carpet), we screwed four small castors to the bottom of the spool.

Two of our castors are able to lock, should we choose to keep the table in place; however, we have yet to use them since we are always rolling the table around to make room for blocks and trucks and other toys!

I caught Baby J about to drop a toy into the hole the other day; masking tape was a quick solution.

And yes, I appreciate rainbow order and like to sometimes organize our books that way.  :)

We love to read....!!

I plan to link up here:

Tip Junkie, Someday Crafts, Skip to My Lou,

The Girl Creative, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Sew Much Ado,

Polka Dots on Parade, Thrifty Decorating, House of Hepworths,

My Simple Home Life, Homemaker in Heels, WhipperBerry

Toy Labels: Cars & Trucks, Music and Animals

Too many times, my husband and I have walked into disorganized playrooms.  Toys strewn everywhere.  Dolls mixed with the trucks.  Blocks with the dishes.  Orphaned puzzle pieces with the dress-up clothes. It can look like a tornado blew through!

Toy rooms can easily be left in a mess, as it is much easier to close the door.  "Out of sight, out of mind."  Or, parents may give in and organize the toys themselves, picking up after their children each night, only to have another tornado blow through the next day.

We do not have a toy room in our home.  Our play space consists of a corner in our upstairs living room, and a (future) shelving unit in our small basement rec. room.

Of course, as more toys have entered our home throughout the last 10 months of Baby J's life, that little 'corner' has started to grow.

As a result, we thought it would be wise to begin early in teaching our little man to organize his own toys, thus helping to keep the chaos under control.

In my kindergarten classroom, every bin and shelf that the children were responsible for, had a label attached to it.  This label included both a picture and the associated word(s).  They knew quickly where writing utensils, books, manipulatives, and toys were to be put away.

Giving children the opportunity to put away their own toys teaches:

• independence
• organizational skills
• respect for ones belongings
• one-to-one recognition (i.e. the trucks go into the truck bin)
• literacy skills (i.e. matching the image to the word on the label)

Of course, I can replicate this system in a simpler form in our own home!  I recently inherited three very rugged milk crates from my father-in-law.  It is my goal this week to sew covers for these otherwise unattractive crates, and attach some useful labels.

We are beginning with the most frequently used toys: Cars & Trucks, Musical Objects, and Animals (mostly 'stuffies').

I will share more labels over the next while as our home and toy organization continues.

Happy Organizing and Playing!

I plan to link up here:

Tip Junkie

Someday Crafts

Skip to My Lou

The Girl Creative

A Bowl Full of Lemons
Toys in the Dryer