organizing "treasures" in bedroom 3

It's been a little while since we added the freshly painted wooden shelves to the bedroom 3 closet. I didn't want to put anything on them for weeks, for fear that something would stick to the paint. I don't know why it is, but things like shelves and tabletops can stay "sticky" for weeks after being painted, and if they don't have plenty of time to cure, their newly painted finish doesn't stand a chance against scuffs, marks, and rings.




So, I've only recently been willing to put anything on the shelves. Consequently, Punkin had made quite a little pile of "treasures" for herself in the closet corner during the last several weeks.

I pulled it all out the other day so we could take care of it.



Yeah. She looks real concerned about the mess.

She's such a little hoarder. I found the strangest stuff tucked into pockets and nooks. SweetP was exactly the same way at age 5. Give these girls a trinket and they shove it into a tiny pocket in no time.

Have you ever set out to tackle an organizing project and bought all kinds of bins and baskets to corral everything only to find that things didn't quite fit right or you have spent way too much money? I've totally done that. A lot. Let me tell you, I was so tempted to jump in the car and drive straight to IKEA that very hour. Interestingly, though, the organization pros actually say you shouldn't buy anything at first. The main thing is usually not needing a new spot to put things, but needing to get rid of things so you have less to put anywhere! The idea of brand new white bins lined up, crisp and clean, down the closet shelf certainly appeals to me, but, I harnessed my weirdo urges to buy organizing stuff to take care of our other stuff. For now, anyway. Until I have a better idea of exactly what we need, what size, and where we plan to put it!



The first thing we did was make use of the bin the child already had beneath her bed for items such as these. I really don't like clutter, but I do like sentimental little momentos, so I wanted the children to have a place for things like cards from their third birthdays. Of course, they also keep CDs from Chick-fil-a and Target receipts in there, too. Treasures. This bin under Punkin's bed is her stuff box. Some of the less meaningful items (aka junk) got tossed, by the way. Eventually, she was into the organizing and didn't mind parting with the kid's meal toys.

But, alas, all the treasures didn't fit into the stuff box, either. And, really, some things needed to be a little more easily accessed. Brother has his bottom dresser drawer filled with legos, so we pulled all of the wadded up treasures out of the bottom drawer on Punkin's side so she could have her own special drawer, too.

The drawer was lovely when we finished :)

The only problem was that we still had stuff left over. Punkin solved that problem by putting the wayward items into her travel bag. She keeps a travel bag, ready to go in a moment's notice, with all her necesseties. Very practical, this little hoarder is.

She has two bags now that still have no home. I'm not really sure they'd stay very neat at all just sitting on the closet shelf. She'd just stuff things in their general direction. We need to come up with another solution. I found some pretty cute wall hooks that might do double duty as organizers and charming prettiness. I'll share them with you in the next post.

These photos of the closet remind me that I haven't shown you the snazzy new hangers we bought for the children's clothes. Mismatched hangers are hardly the end of the world, and no child has ever been ruined by hanging their clothes on plastic ones, but when I found these child-sized wooden hangers on ebay for a steal, we snatched 'em up.



SweetP says the closet looks just like Lands' End Kids now.

Funny.

We have quite a few of these hangers, so I'm hoping to get some of our extra clothes hung on the top closet rod for storage. More clothes hanging in the closet means fewer Rubbermaid storage bins in our garage ;)

Just in case you're wondering, I'm happy to report that it's been several weeks since we shaped up the pile o' treasures and Punkin has done a great job working on the habit of putting her things away in their special places. It looks much like in these photos. The bags are still on the floor behind the door, though, so that would be a good thing to address next.