Toy Storage Part 1 - Stuffed Animals

I hate stuffed animals.

I mean, I get having 1 or 2, or even 3 - it's nice to snuggle with something that makes you feel all warm and cozy.  But the 5 million of them that take over every corner of my children's beds so that they're relegated to a tiny corner of it?  That's just ridiculous.  And my kids loves each. and. every. one.  Like they have radar and can tell when even one of them is missing.

Ugh.

So, for the past 7 years, I've been trying to figure out a solution to this problem.  At first, it was just the big rubbermaid bin on the floor that contained all of my oldest's toys.  When there was just her, it was fine.  Then we added three more kids to the mix and the amount of toys grew exponentially.  I felt like I was drowning in stuffed animals and every other bit imaginable.

We moved the stuffed animals to one of those chain thingies:

Stuffed Animal Chain

My kids just pulled them off the clips and could never get them back up, so it became one more thing for Mommy to do :/  Plus they really liked to pull on the chain.

Then we moved it to one of those nets:

Stuffed animal net

This was fine for a little while, but it was too high for them to reach, and again, putting them away became a project for Mommy.  No thank you.  It also just looks like a big spiderweb in the corner of the room, taking up a ton of space on the wall.  I did not like it.

So I started doing some research on Pinterest, because, well - Pinterest is awesome ;)

I found some really cute ideas, like this wall planter idea from Organize It Challenge By Aubrey:

Check out her site - seriously, go now. It's awesome

I loved this idea, but again, the issue for me was the kids not being able to reach it and Mommy having to clean up everything.  Again, no thanks.

And this idea from Come Together Kids:

Also an amazing site!

Also a great idea, but we have 3 of the space hogging really cute and useful Pottern Barn kid chairs that take up most of the floor space in the play area.  We don't need anymore floor cushions or seats.

And then I saw this from the Griffiths Garden:

The Griffiths Garden

BRILLIANT!!!  I'd seen other ones, too, like this one:

Picture source

And this:

Picture source

But I kept running into the same problem.  I didn't have anywhere to put ANOTHER shelf.  Seriously.  I have 2 cube storage shelves and that's pretty much all that will fit in our playroom.  And then BAM!  It hit me - do this to some of the cubes!!!

PERFECT!!!

It's at the right height for them to put them away on their own so Mommy doesn't have to do it.  SOLD.

Wanna know how to do it?  It's really easy, I promise :D

You'll need a drill with 2 sizes of drill bits and canopy ties - oh, and a cube shelf.  

The cube shelves I have are from Target and each cube measures about 11" square.

I bought these canopy ties from Home Depot - I liked them best because they were the thinnest and seemed to be the easiest to work with:

I measured the top and bottom of each cube and marked a dot 1/2" in and at points 3" and 8" from the left.  I then drilled with a smaller drill bit first and followed it with a bigger drill bit slightly larger than the canopy tie - just so I didn't tear the particle board apart.  This stuff is on the cheap side.

Then I prepared the canopy tie by sliding off the little orange bit on the back and wiggling the knot out of the orange ball enough to grab it with pliers and pulled the orange ball off.

I untied the knot using the pliers to get more leverage.

I tied a double knot at one end of the bungee cord...

...and threaded it from the bottom through the bottom left hole...

...up through the top left hole...

...across through the top right hole from the top...

...and down through the bottom right hole from the top.

Tie another double knot at the bottom and you're done :D  Repeat for as many cubes as you'd like...I did the top four.

Fill with stuffed animals and enjoy!

I'm in love :D

For a tutorial on how to make the cube bins, check out part 2.