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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Dollar Store Storage Bins

I'm in the process of redoing Andyroo's room. He never got a "proper" nursery when he was born, so I'm making up for lost time and giving him a new big boy room. Part of the new room is some cleaner, more efficient toy storage.





One of the things that drives me nuts about his room is the toys! I know I'm not the only mom out there who feels that way about their child(ren)'s toys. When he was younger and had fewer toys, I tried the shoe size (6 quart-ish) plastic bins. They worked, but he eventually got too many toys and the lids didn't fit or they were stepped on and broken. For a while, his favorite thing to do was dump out the little toy boxes. I finally gave up the insanity of separating the toys and just got him one big box.

But when he dumps that out because he's looking for his tiny green army men, I go crazy. I may be the mom, but I do NOT like cleaning up after the other people in this house!

I was considering making some canvas bins, but I'm afraid that they'll just get ruined very quickly - ripped or crushed or whatever. I wanted to do something that would be sturdy, so I was considering using cut up cereal boxes or plastic canvas as inserts in the middle of the canvas to make them stronger. But I kept thinking about how they would get destroyed so easily. So I put off making them for a few months.

Then as I was walking around the dollar store, I found the plastic bins in pink and light blue and my mind immediately went to the spray paint for plastics! So I grabbed 8 of them. There were only 10 on the shelf and while I considered taking all 10, I thought that was a little greedy. Instead I took 8. Hehe.

Krylon makes a great Plastics spray paint in quite a few colors. I found mine at Walmart for around $4, I think. It was windy, I got a little spray happy, and then towards the end the can wouldn't stop spraying. So the can only did the 3 I needed. *Phew* Even so, a total cost of less than $2.50 per bin isn't bad at all.

Only 6 would fit on Andyroo's shelf. Of the 8 I bought, 5 were a light blue and 3 were a bright pink. Since I needed 6, I was going to have to use one of the pink. I decided to use 3 light blue and 3 pink and paint the pink ones a darker shade of blue. I had pictures of the pink bins (so you could see just how pink they were), but they've disappeared somewhere into the abyss of my computer. Oh well. Use your imagination :)

The 2 shades of blue ended up matching the his Thomas the Train comforter (which I found on Clearance at Target - total score!) really well, which made me extra happy. I'm kind of pulling colors from his comforter for the rest of his room. Someday I'll get it finished and let you all see!



Much more tidy, don't you think?

Each bin is used for a different set of toy - potato head, cars, train, etc. Now everything has a place! And Andyroo doesn't have to dump out the whole bin when he wants to find Potato Head's moustache.




I think I want to add some picture labels, but I haven't decided yet. So far Andyroo's pretty good about just looking to see what is in each box. And I still usually have to help supervise clean up anyway, so I just grab a bin and tell him to put all his cars in it.

These have been in Andyroo's room for a little over a month now and they're working really well. The paint isn't peeling or being scratched off (another of my worries) and they're just so darn cute!


I'm also thinking of painting or redoing the book shelf. Any suggestions?

What system do you have to keep the toys from taking over your house?

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10 comments:

  1. Great idea to paint the pink ones. You can't beat the price of those bins.

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  2. The Dollar store has some really great organizing solutions. I wouldn't have thought to paint the pink ones though. Great idea!

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  3. My sister totally texted me a photo of these bins from Dollar Tree last week. I was worried they would be too small, but I guess not!

    Looks so neat and organized! Want to go clean the kids rooms up now.

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  4. Those turned out so cute! I always see cute containers at the dollar store but they are in the wrong colors. Never thought to spray paint them. Now it will be even harder not to spend money there! :)

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  5. Very clever to spray paint the pink bins they turned out great!

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  6. Great Idea!! Stopping in from 30 Handmade Days Link up!!

    Many Blessings,
    Tina

    http://craftyandgreen.blogspot.com

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  7. wow-those are some huge bins for a dollar! way to think about spray painting them...i wish i could think like that. it's only after i see someone do it first that i think, hmm...yes...i need bins to spraypaint!

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  8. I just wanted to let you know these will be featured at this weekend's link party! Thank you so much for sharing. I need to do something like this in my little boy's room. It always looks like a toy tornado in there!

    Come grab a featured button, if you'd like and hope to see you at the party!

    Krista @ While He Was Napping

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  9. what fabulous storage bins, AND- they're cute to boot! haha...I'm visiting from TipJunkie. Hope you're having a great day!

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