Exhibit A: This is my daughter’s room 99% of the time:

A mess of creative energy has spewed all over the place.  I’ve tried to organize her room before, but this is the result within minutes of my departure.  Today, I attempted once again to organize this room.  The challenge – cramming all of her crap beloved toys and crafts into one small room without it looking cluttered.

Step 1: The Dress Up Clothes

The dress up bin was previously located under the bed.  This was a great place when she didn’t play with it much, but now that dress up is an everyday occurrence – we needed to find a more prominent place in the room.  I present “The Dress Up Corner”.

BEFORE: The previous corner used for art:

AFTER: The Dress Up Corner – Using a shelf I already had and a tension rod, I created a place to hang her dresses and a place to display her shoes.  I then hung hooks on the wall to hang accessories.  No dress up area is complete without a mirror, thus an inexpensive wall mirror was hung next to the dress up.  I spent about $20 on some hooks, mirror and tension rod.  Not too shabby.

Step 2: Stuffed Animal Hammock

BEFORE: An attempt to use a cheap trunk which was supposed to hold the weight of a child, but quickly collapsed after stuffing it with stuffed animals and my children jumping on it.

AFTER: A hammock made with a crocheted blanket (my daughter has about 5 thanks to my friends and my crafty ways) cinched together by some ribbon I had and tied to a screw in the wall.  Cost $0.  Woot woot!

Step 3: Organize the Art Center

BEFORE: Papers stuffed in every drawer. My daughter loves to cut EVERYTHING, then tape it back together.  She saves everything from empty cereal boxes to magazines to packaging from a recent gift.  If there is a picture on it, she wants to save it and cut it out, then save it again.  It’s enough to make me crazy.  So for this part, I told her to go play somewhere else while I filled up an entire LARGE trashbag full of “crafty collectables”.

AFTER: Ah, nice and neat.  I’m sure it won’t stay this way for long, but at least it looks nice at this moment.  Coloring books together, stickers together, coloring items, etc.  I also moved it to another spot in the room.

So there it is.  I’m exhausted and satisfied all at the time.  Here is the finished room (if you notice, in the time it took me to get my camera, my daughter sneaked in and messed up the blankets on her bed, hung some weird toy on the bed and poured Legos on the dresser.  *sigh*):

Hope you got some good ideas, and please share your tips and tricks to organizing the kid rooms in your home 🙂

Tagged: dress up, girls room, net, organizing, storage, stuffed animal