Easy Cake Decorating

If you want your cakes to look fancy and you don’t have a lot of time, try this easy cake decorating tip.

It can work on whatever cake recipe you use! Use a doily and sprinkle cinnamon or cocoa, or icing sugar (depending on the color of the whole cake) through the holes of the doily and then lift up the doily.

You’ve got a dainty, elegant looking cake! Enjoy

Here is a funny article about packing for Summer Camp, written by Baila Feig, a Professional Organizer in Brooklyn, NY. Enjoy!

WHERE IS MY SOLEMATE?

I bet you thought this will be an article about finding your bashert …. but no – its about today’s buzzword – being organized!

I know many of you are ready for your next adventure. By now its been a long time since the excitement and frenzy of the Pesach season. After a quiet Sefira period, you are ready for some more action.

Some of you have already shlepped out suitcases, dufflebags, collapsible chairs, and portable frig from the garage and are packing up at least four of your children for camp. You are ready to run around to six stores getting the kids the very latest in camp apparel. Nothing less will do. I mean, what would all the kids at camp say if your kids looked soooo last year! This is a traumatic consequence that must be avoided at all costs! So what if it’ll cost you your mortgage? These are your children, and they must be happy and protected from any disapproval. I mean, you don’t want to threaten their shidduchim prospects from the age of 11, do you? Certainly you don’t. Now wise up and get shopping.

The camp packing list said you need three weeks worth of socks, underwear, shirts and towels. Is the camp not planning on doing laundry? Or do they know (from vast experience) that no one (especially boys!!) are not changing their laundry very often and only some of it winds up at the laundromat? So why do you need so much laundry? Because, as all experienced mothers know, some of their children’s laundry simply disappears and evaporates. Especially socks. Always. Whether it be at home, camp, bungalow, hotel, school Shabbaton or Bubby and Zeidy’s house, the children will not come home with everything you sent and they will have to keep using their remaining stock, but a lot of that will also not return. You will never see the laundry again. And you will never know why. It is one of the great mysteries of life – kind of like one of the Eight Wonders of the World. Or like the Bermuda Triangle – but that’s about shorts. For those of you who got the double entendre, we can discuss that in a future article.

Circulating in the atmosphere somehow, invisibly, are all these socks wishing they can be reunited with their mate. But it will never haphazardly come to be. It will take a higher power. They too are suffering from the Shidduch crises. Ooohhhh – I know! We can start a new shidduch group! We can call it the MatchSocks Group! or Looking for My Solemate Group! I can just see it. Hundreds of women bringing shoe boxes brimming with unmatched socks. I’ve got it -The Sock Exchange! This is brilliant! The women will try to make a sock-match with another mother’s socks! You know how many matches we can make in one night! We’d wind up the front page of the Shidduch Magazine as the year’s most successful shidduch group. Do you know how many mothers will come home thrilled? They will finally feel that after years of attending shidduchim meetings, they can finally come home with some jubilant news! They will have what once was a jumble of mix-matched socks now rolled into balls of same socks! They’ll never again hear their son say, “Ma! I’m not wearing one plain polyester sock with one cotton socks with lines! Everyone in class will think I’m such a nerd!” To which you can say, “If there is any boy in your class who is looking under your pants hem to check out whether or not your socks match, I want to speak to his mother, and the principal!”

Okay, we got a little worked up about socks. But when you are passionate about something, it shows.

As a Professional Organizer, I come across this quandary all the time. There is always a drawer with, nebech, the single socks. In the past I have advised my client to reconcile themselves to the fact that these socks will remain single for the duration of the owners lifetime and beyond, unless they were to attend the shidduch groups..

One very effective solution which many people utilize is to buy a male collection and female collection of all the same exact socks so you can always make pairs with the not-yet-lost socks. Another idea I recommend is having the camper put his or her pair of socks in a zippered mesh bag every night (ha!) and when it is laundry day, put a safety pin through that little hole in that zipper puller-thing and loop the pin through some of the mesh (we wish!). Now all you have left to do is hope the whole bag comes back to your child. It may not. If not, then you have to go to the Post Office and ship them another three weeks worth of socks.

Simultaneously to shopping, labeling, hemming and packing for your kids, you, of course, are trying to do all of the same for the rest of the family that are going to either the bungalow, mountains, country, colony, or upstate, or all of the above. Except for this excursion, it will require you to pack up most of the house and fit it all in to a two-room shack into which you will shtup your other six children, husband and cleaning lady.

Besides taking at least two sets of dishes, paper goods, food, pots, pans, grill, bicycles, linens, beach chairs, too many weekday clothes, too many Shabbos clothes, every kind of sweater, jacket, and raincoat, etc., etc. ,etc., no bungalow feels like home unless you install air conditioning, so be sure to take at least two. And don’t forget your laptop or iPad. You must tell all your friends whether they are in the mountains, or nebech, in the city, how much fun you are having in the colony. You can use Facebook or IM, or Chat or Twitter or texting or bbm, etc. on your Blackberry, SmartPhone or iPhone so you won’t have to actually speak to anybody. Whose got time? You have to wait on line for the washer and dryer, then run to the bread truck, and the stocking and teichel lady car, lay by the pool, shop in the on-site grocery and plotz about the prices, and then rush to the bungalow to make spaghetti and cheese before the sweaty ,dirty, overtired and kvetchy little ones get back from day camp. That’s when the real work begins. Are you having any fun yet?

For those of us who stay home, let me tell you what we are doing while you are all away, enjoying yourself. We are driving to Borough Park and finding parking spots on the very block we are shopping! And we have the stores to ourselves because the rest of the world is in the country. And everything is on sale because the shopping frenzy is over and the stores are already showing the fall inventory and back-to-school clothes, and its only early July! The streets are devoid of pedestrians and vehicular traffic, traffic jams, incessant honking, fighting over parking spots, and mothers with baby strollers and many other children walking four across on the avenue. We, takeh, get a vacation without even going anywhere.

Y’all have a great time shopping, packing, shlepping, unpacking, shtuping and enjoying the beautiful country air laying on a chaise lounge – we summertime Brooklynites are just envious!!

How I Organize Kids Board Games

Here’s how I organize kids’ Board Games. Ready?

With tall items, sometimes the best way to organize them is to turn them over so they are lying on their sides, instead of stacking them and expecting little kids to be able to extract a game from a pile and then put it back expertly!

This tips for organizing kids board games also works well with some pots and pans and other large awkward items.

Enjoy and I’d love to see your picture of how you organize your kids board games!

PS-There are board game storage containers that are sold online at various places, I have not personally tried them but have seen them and they look like this:

How to Get Even Closer with your Kids

I just spent 3 weeks with my kids in Israel without the “interruption” of school, homework, and after school activities so we were pretty much together 24/7.

It was a wonderful yet intense experience. My kids are all under the ages of 7.

I learned a lot about them and myself, with my buttons getting pushed every few hours (minutes!) by them and their needs but all in all I’d say it was great.

If you’ve been a reader for a while, you know I like to create hand written drawings for kids in order for them to better organize themselves.

What I found is that you can take advantage of drawing not only their schedule and tasks related to organizing, but also their feelings and “intensities”.

For instance, when one of my kids acted up for a reason that was not obvious to me, I put them in a quiet area with a sketch pad and they could draw the scenario that blew up for them. I would sit with them after the finished their drawing and go over what happened with them.

If I wanted to “teach” a lesson without preaching, sometimes I would draw my explanation or my lesson to their intense feelings together with them on their sketch pad.

Or another example is that one of my kids wanted to buy everything he kept seeing in stores. We were in pretty commercialized areas in Israel so there were a LOT of stores around us. I was getting pretty tired of hearing, “Mommy, can we buy this? Can we buy that?” So I said, “You know what, let’s make a list of everything you want to buy and then keep on adding things to the list.” Now all I have to say is, “Go add it to the list!”

Not giving in to his whims about buying things is something really important- not only because I’d be broke but because he needed to learn the concept of delayed gratification.

Now let me go ask my kids if I can make a copy of their list and attach it for you

Passover for Kids-20 Great Steps towards a Kid Friendly Seder

The following is an excerpt from our infamous Passover Perfectly Organized Planner. It’s not too late to get your hands on a copy of the Passover Perfectly Organized Planner. because you still need to finish cooking and cleaning and we’ve got over 100+ Kosher for Passover recipes plus what you MUST know for finishing up your Pre-Passover and Erev Yom Tov Preparations!

Why focus on the kids?
We are taught that the main purpose of the Haggadah is “Vehigadeta Levincha”, teaching your children about the Exodus. The Gemarah instructs us to purposefully plan activities for the kids so they do not fall asleep and to peak their interest.

Easy to say, but how do you keep the kids inspired?
It’s hard to keep the kids awake though! With the Seder night as long as it is, and with this instruction in mind, it is important to have on hand lots of creative ideas to keep the kids awake. “But I’m so busy switching my dishes and cleaning the house,” you may be thinking.

No, no no, you don’t need to plan anything complicated or in advance for a kid-friendly seder! Do have a few ideas in mind though because you know the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Enjoy these crazy ideas for charming all of your sons (and daughters)- even the ones who are unable to ask.

Passover for Kids-Spice up Various Sections of the Haggadah

Kadesh
Let your kids lead the introductory song of the Seder’s Order, you know the one that goes, “Kadesh, Urchatz, Karpas, Yachatz.” Then, after everyone sings the traditional song, have the kids make up a rap song with the order. Have a competition as to who has the best rap!

Urchatz
2-3 year olds love to pour water! Have them walk around with a bowl and washing cup and a towel and appoint them as the water-boy or girl, pouring the full cup over each pair of hands.

Karpas
For young kids, designate the karpas domain as theirs. Let them be in charge of the karpas. They can give each guest a potato or celery stick and dip it for each guest. Then, let them keep the stash and dip for themselves as a snack throughout the seder until they’ve reached their tummies share.

Yachatz
Once the middle matzah is broken, the kids can take the afikomen bag and hide it. Throughout the seder they can switch hiding places but let them get started hiding at this point to keep the excitement flowing.

Maggid
I interviewed a Jewish storyteller coach as well as a dad of four about how to keep kids interested in the Seder, since after all, that is the critical part of the mitzvah of having a seder.

Here’s what Jewish storyteller and storytelling coach Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff had to share:

1. Focus on one specific part of the Exodus story. Because there is no way to delve into every aspect of the story, picking one piece to tell is a great way to more deeply learn one part of the story. When you TELL the story, rather than reading it, you are following the commandment to tell the story of the Exodus. (Hagaddah means “the
telling”.)

2. Share the story through the perspective of one character (Jocheved, Miriam, the Pharoah, the princess, a Hebrew slave, etc.). Tell his or her story using the Torah text and also include rabbinic Midrashim and your own creative midrashim.

One year, I told Miriam’s story in the first person, as if I were Miriam. I told pieces of her story throughout the Seder. Just after the candle lighting, I began telling her story as if I were Miriam as a young girl, worrying about the consequences of “my” mother giving birth to a boy. As the Seder progressed, I shared Miriam’s sadness as she watched her little brother floating down the Nile River in his little ark of reeds. I added more pieces to Miriam’s story and just before the meal, I joyfully “remembered” leading the women in celebration as we danced and played timbrels. I included rabbinic Midrashim as well as my own creative midrashim. Sharing aspects of Miriam’s story throughout the evening made the Exodus more personal to the participants.

3. Create a comfortable storytelling setting. Another year, when it came to the Maggid section, I invited people to leave the table and come into our living room. We sat on couches and I told the whole Passover story (this time a short version) and then asked the
participants to comment. I had questions for the participants to respond to as well, which led to a group discussion about the Exodus. Getting away from the table into a real storytelling setting (comfortably seated in a casual semi-circle) provided an entertaining
and relaxing respite from the long ritual of the Seder.

4. Have teens take the younger children into another room early in the Seder. As the adults are participating in the first steps of the Seder, the teens can help the children prepare a skit or song about the Exodus story to be performed during the Maggid section.

The children can wear costume (scarves, towels and robes are easy and work well for “desert” scenes). If there is not an interested teen, a fun aunt or uncle might love this job of helping the children (and prefer it over sitting through the Seder).

(Jennifer is wonderful. I’ve seen her in action; she makes stories come alive. To contact her, visit www.jenniferstories.com.)

I also interviewed a very creative father of four in Baltimore, Dov Pear, who had a bunch of fun activities to share. He has a great time with these tips and uses them to keep all of his kids awake. Mind you, his sedarim go till about 3:30 or 4 AM!

Avadim Hayinu- “We were slaves in Egypt”

Slave Walk
You can have a lot of fun with this one. Pack a sack of heavy items for each child and have them walk around with them, hunched over.

Can’t get out of Egypt!
Dov Pear, wears a kittel with a sash and ties up the kids in his sash pretending they are slaves. I’m not sure if he ties up all four at once or just one at a time, but you get the picture! It sounds like a lot of fun!

More Slave Walking
This past year, Dov divided up everyone into 2 lines. Each person got up from the table and had to stack several couch pillow cushions on their heads and walk through the line, one at a time, without dropping them. The winner got a prize!

The Main Story of the Exodus
TV Show-“Egyptian Idol”
Tell the story of the exodus as a TV host. Another creative idea, told to me by Dov Pear, was that when his 7 year old son was getting tired, he took a huge empty picture frame that he knew was lying around, propped it up on 2 chairs, and pretended to be a TV host telling the story of how the Jews left Egypt and all of the details. He went through the plagues and took turns with other guests at the seder, giving them a round at being a TV Star! Create your own TV spoof of the story of the Exodus.

Red Sea Splitting
You can have a lot of fun reenacting the splitting of the sea. When you get to the part about the Egyptians drowning, you can take a big blanket and have all of the adult guests at your seder hold the edges, creating a “parachute” like effect with the kids being tossed around the blanket. Be careful with this one or just use a trampoline for the purposes of Egyptian impersonation.

10 Plagues
Plague Kits
You can get the standard plague boxes or create your own. Hand out bandaids for the plague of blood or red food coloring, plastic frogs, stuffed animals for wild animals, nerf ball blasts for hail, red dot stickers for boils, bandannas for the plague of darkness, etc.

Name that Plague
Each person at your seder can act out a plague while everyone watching can NAME THAT PLAGUE! You don’t need to stick to acting out plagues only during the reading of the 10 plagues. If the kids get antsy, have some “makah madness” and shake out their laughs and wiggles by acting like jumping frogs or wild animals.

Rachtza- you probably won’t need much help with any of these next ones since they involve food!!!

Motzi Matzah

Maror

Korech

Shulchan Orech

Tzafun
Afikomen Scavenger Hunt
The kids or parents (depending on who is hiding the afikomen) can prepare clues in advance or provide some clues as to where the afikomen is. Make a scavenger hunt and have the kids work in teams rather than on their own, where afikomen finding can end up in tears. Have lots of little prizes ready for all of the kids at your seder!

Barech
For the next 3 parts, singing can really be encouraged. Animal noises at Chad Gadya, Hallel. Use funny voices, Alvin and the Chipmunks, cantorial voices, etc.

Eliyahu Hanavi
If you don’t have kids that are too little and too frightened, have someone dress all in white and be ready by the door so when it is opened, your costumed Elijah run in the house. This can be really fun if you have a pet who can run in at the exact moment you open the door! You have to coordinate the Elijahs somehow so no one notices their advanced exit.

Hallel
Sing, sing, sing, using the tunes the kids learned in school.

Nirtzah
Throughout the Seder, I suggest you pass out candies, nuts, or little craisins to toss to the kids everytime they participate in the story. The little snacks keep them awake and give them a constant something to look forward to.

You can also perform random tricks, spur of the moment funnies like putting the seder plate on your head or jumping up and down. Magic tricks and juggling are welcome as are story telling! Have fun

I hope you can use this excerpt from our Passover Perfectly Organized Planner effectively at your own seder table!

(The picture linked to this page is the cover of a Pesach book written by my family friend Osher Werner. You can get it at Amazon.com)

If you have a hard time getting your kids to brush their teeth, empower and inspire them to take “ownership” of their dental hygiene responsibility, by creating their very own dental hygiene kit with them.

It is super easy! In fact, the easier the better

Go to an office supply store with your child and purchase a see-through “ziploc” type pouch. You’ll want one that is a heavier plastic than a regular plastic baggy of course.

Simply place all of the things necessary to promote their teeth brushing habit inside of their own pouch.

- toothbrush
- floss
- flavored toothpaste

Place their tooth brushing kit in a location that is near by the sink that they brush at, or have them keep their dental hygiene kits in their bedrooms.

I get a lot of requests to provide tips for parents on how to organize their kids. There are A LOT of books, websites, newsletters, workshops out there that provide tips for parents on how to get your child to be more organized. I’m going to be bold in making this announcement and perhaps be the first Professional Organizer to EVER admit this and I think that there are just some kids out there whose “wiring” makes it VERY DIFFICULT for them to be organized.

They don’t understand what you’re saying (or yelling) when you say, “Clean up your room!” They don’t see the mess you may be talking about. Asking them to pick up after themselves may actually be too much for them.

I hate saying this, “Mom and Dad” but I have two very spirited children and I can see in their “wiring” that one is more organized than the other. No matter how hard I work the disorganized one, my tip to you parents is that for some kids, organizing just don’t work that well!

Of course, I recommend you do about a MILLION tricks and techniques for modeling proper methods of organizing for them, using hooks and clear storage containers instead of ones they can’t see, even removing drawers from a dresser and not using them so they can literally see what’s in their drawers. and if all that doesn’t work, before you admit this. If you try everything (including talking to a professional) and you realize that it is just too much on the child to expect them to maintain high levels of organization, then you need to lower your expectations. I did, and I’m a professional organizer. I didn’t want to harp on my child when I see how difficult it is for him/her to pick everything up.

Here’s what I do and I’m sharing these with you in case you have a child like mine:

Tip for Parents #1-Don’t ask for more than 2 items at a time to be picked up. It may be just too overwhelming for your child.

Tip for Parents #2-Physically walk with your child over to the mess and show them EXACTLY what you want to see happen, instead of calling from across the room!

Tip for Parents #3--Include lots of body cross-over movements to “wake up your child’s brain” to make the activity of organizing easier for them. Example- if they can jump like a frog or pick items up using opposite hands, you’ll be creating new neurological pathways in their brains making new “wires” for them that make the linear process of organizing way easier for them.

Tips for Parents #4-This tip was just about my last resort and I bought a HUGE tent for my child’s room because I just didn’t want to see the mess anymore. Here’s an example of one for you-

The Play Tent has been working out amazingly well since I don’t need to see the mess of the playfigures, dolls, doll accessories, etc. They all stay in the tent where my child and his/her friends can play inside along with the toys and then leave the toys in the tent!

The trick to making this work is that it is HUGE and blends in my child’s room really well. What do you think of that tip, parents? I’m curious to know what you think!

Those are some of my most effective tips for parents of kids who staying organized is a challenge for. I know because my child is one of those kids- despite us modeling easy methods of organizing. It’s more important to me to work within my child’s spirit rather than trying to change it, maybe that’s too “new-agey” but it’s me

I make up checklists for my kids because I find they get anxious when they don’t know what their schedule is. How did I find that out? Because every weekend when I want to take it slow and unplanned, their behavior just doesn’t seem to support that! In other words, the sudden shift in our staying organized and planned out from minute to minute which is what our school-week looks like, to a lazy weekend with no “set in stone” schedule, seems to make them nervous and I know this because their behavior is not optimal on the weekends!

Therefore, I’ve created checklists for them with drawn out pictures of our loosely planned activities. They are both 7 and 5 years old hence the need for pictures

They love to look at the drawings and tape the page on our front door each weekend to refer to and make sure they’re on “schedule”. I’ve asked them how they like their checklists and they both really do so I’m hoping that they will provide them with a little bit more stability, even on those long days off of school.

What do you all think of re-gifting? I know, I know, it’s a shocker to even say the word in public, but I know that many of us do it, and I’d like to know what you have to say about it.

My opinion? Take a guess. I’m a professional organizer for goodness sakes! I can’t stand clutter! And if someone else can enjoy what I’ve received that I don’t have use for, why not?

Is that crass? You tell me. If you think re-gifting is a sin, consider this tip.

Buy several gift cards for emergency gifts you forgot about, last minute birthday party invites, and quick dinner party gifts. They don’t need to have a lot of money on them, even a $5 Starbucks gift card will be an effective thank you gift.

The benefits of having an assortment of gift cards on hand is that they won’t take up too much space in your home, you don’t need to shop forever to find gifts that are priced low enough without looking “cheap-y”, and they are extremely handy.

So, if you are determined to keep a gift closet and not let it get too out of hand, either gift and regift or if you feel like that is a cardinal sin, buy several gift cards and keep them for when you need ‘em. You’ll be glad you did!

I received this question recently from a reader and wanted to answer it timely since keeping an organized home with young kids can often feel exasperating! You may feel like you are picking up litter off of the floor every hour and believe you me, you are not alone!

Hi There,
I like your organizing ideas, however I do have a question? I think I am an organized person, but its really tricky being organized with little children. Do you have any tips? Especially tips for keeping their rooms tidy. My 8 year old and 6 year old girls share a room and they have so many knicknacks which they love to display and I don’t want to interfere with their personal goodies, but their room is such a clutter. Do you have any suggestions for this? Also any info for organizing the garage with all the bicycles lying around as well as dolly prams would be helpful. Thanks again for a great site. Have great day! Genevieve

Genevieve, Thanks for your question. It can definitely be a challenge to keep a house organized with little children running around and with their toys and knicknacks.

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Tip #1- Notice what your kids are REALLY playing with. My kids are 7 and 5 1/2 and one of my most favorite things to do with them is to sit and watch them play. They are so creative and they play with each other so well (most of the time).

One thing they love to do is take stuffed animals and pretend they are in an animal shelter or a school and my favorite part is when they talk in these high pitched voices and give names to their little animals. (Cocoa and Cocalina are my two favs

So, when I think about organizing my house and especially the toys, I know that I don’t even want to TOUCH the stuffed animals because those promote so much imaginative play at this point. Who knows? In 3 years maybe I’ll be donating them all since they probably won’t be “into” them at that point, but I don’t mind.

So Tip #1 is to decide what’s important to keep based on what your kids actually use.  Most likely you know by now what it is your kids are really playing with.

Then, don’t worry about those toys- just come up with a really good home for the toys they actually play with. Believe it or not, the stuffed animals are currently in my main living room hiding behind my sofa! I’ve got a sofa with about a foot of space in back of it for the A/C vent to have room and many, many animals are just lying there on the floor, unseen by anyone else!

They like to play with them there and you know what? That foot of floor space behind the couch is also a great puppet theatre I’ll take a picture of them doing a puppet show for you at some point soon.

2. Tip #2- Ask your kids what they want to keep. This tip kind of goes along with the one prior to it, and what I like about it is that your kids will learn organizational skills as well as other problem solving skills. I often ask my kids a few days after they come home with a pile of schoolwork or artwork from school, “Is this a project that is really special to you? Do you want to keep this? Where do you think we should put it?”

Many times my kids will surprise me with a very emphatic “Yes I want to keep it” for a project that to me doesn’t look like it was very involved for them and a “Nah, I don’t care about that one”, for a project which was that of an artist’s talent! (Maybe because the teacher did it for them or something

Your kids will start learning very quickly how to decide what’s important, how to actually part with clutter, and solutions for how to organize their stuff. All very good values to start teaching at an early age!

(Genevieve, it’s possible those knickknacks your girls love to display really aren’t important to them at all and perhaps they’d have no problem parting with some of them at this point)

3. Tip #3- Be Specific! When I find myself exasperated sometimes saying things like, “The cleaning lady just came today, can we please keep the house clean?”, I realize that my kids probably don’t see what I see. They are too young and the words “the house is a mess” is just too vague for them to understand.

We need to be specific in our directions to them regarding cleanliness and organizing. A much more specific direction would be, “I see socks on the floor that belong in the hamper.” You’ll have a much better response rate when you are specific about what you see and where it belongs. In this case, my kids absolutely know where the hamper is, otherwise it would NOT work. Be very clear about where the “homes” are in your house for things and keep practicing putting items back into their ‘homes”. It isn’t going to happen overnight.

4. Tip #4- Do Establish good homes for storing items. We need to constantly assess whether or not the storage we are setting aside for different categories is child-friendly, age appropriate, and sets up our kids for success. If you’ve got a shoe rack that is too small for kids shoes, and you insist that the kids put their shoes on this shoe rack, only to have the shoes fall off everyday, both you and the kids will feel frustrated and unsuccessful.

There are many times I’ve setup what I thought to be a GREAT storage solution only to have it backfire for us. I often reassess what is working for us and what is NOT working for us.

A great rule of thumb for coming up with storage solutions is the 4 storage options that exist. You can always refer to these storage principles and cover pretty much just about any idea for organizing products that exist.

• Hang it up
• Store it in a drawer
• Store it on a shelf

• Store it on the floor

There are no other options besides these, just try and stump me! All organizing containers and products you see out there fit into at least one of these categories. So if your art supplies are currently stuffed into a drawer and that doesn’t work for little fingers, try another alternative, like putting them in a 4 drawer rolling storage bin on the floor, or up in baskets on  shelves, or in wall pocket hanging organizer.

There is no right or wrong answer and I would recommend you go over your selected storage option after 6 months to make sure it is still working effectively for your family.

5. Tip #5-What to do with larger toys- Unfortunately, the larger toys like strollers and bicycles are a bit more challenging to deal with. If you don’t have room for these items, you may want to consider outdoor storage like on a deck or porch or some garage organizing solutions. You can also put marking tape on the floor to help your kids identify whose bike goes where. I often will recycle these larger toys the minute my kids grow out of them, bringing them to a consignment shop or lending them out to a younger child until the next baby is ready to use the toy!