How To Downsize Kid's Toys

     As a parent we each are entitled to our own opinions and ways of raising our kids. I believe that it is my responsibility to insure that my child, who is only 2 years old, is not overwhelmed with an abundance of things in her life. I want to make sure that she can really interact with the toys she has, gain new skills and of course keep the items that I can see have sentimental value to her.

     Kids get so much stuff throughout each year and it really adds up. I keep on top of it in my home, but I can just imagine how stressful it would be if I didn't.

     This is how I downsize toys in our home. Give it a try! It might work for you too.

QUICK TIPS:

• Get your children involved. I feel that this is so important. You wouldn't like it if someone went through all of your stuff and made decisions for you! Plus, they will gain life skills that will hopefully stick with them through adulthood.
• Make this a positive experience. Tell your kids what the goal is and how they can help. This isn't about getting rid of their favorite toys. It's about realizing all that they have and identifying what is truly important to them. Letting go of the old, broken, outgrown, and unloved toys will allow for more space to play, less clean up, and peace of mind. Plus they can do a good deed by giving those toys to someone else who will appreciate them more. Even if that means donating to your local thrift store.
• Be a good example. If your children see that you're working on downsizing your things as well, they won't feel like they are being targeted. Do good for yourself and show them that it's okay to let go. Maybe for everything they let go of, you let go double! Downsizing will set you free!

OKAY, LETS GET STARTED!!

STEP 1:
Gather all of the toys in your home and Put Them In A Pile. I recommend a clear floor space!
     Don't forget to check the car and anywhere else your child's toys may be. This step is so you can really see what all your kids have. This is for the shock effect!!.. and so you can get the task done in one place.

STEP 2:
Designate A Space For Toys and Create Boundries.
     Keep it simple and organized so they can clean up after themselves easily. My daughter has a medium sized basket for all of her toys. We just throw everything into it at the end of the night. However, small toys that have multiple pieces are first put into zippered containers; My unused makeup bags to be exact! Maybe your childs toy space is a plastic bin, a shelving unit, a closet space, or empty dresser drawers. Do what works for you and your children.
     Don't forget to set boundries. Keep no more than what fits in the newly designated home. Anything more will act as clutter if it can't be put away in it's home properly. Isn't this why you want to downsize in the first place!?

STEP 3:
Create a Keep, Donate and Toss Pile. 
     You might as well have the toss pile go straight into a garbage bag to save time as you go. As for the donation pile, I recommend a black bag or a cardboard box. If the inital decision is to donate an item you won't want it visable. Your kids, or even YOU, may try to rescue toys if they are visable. Save yourself from back tracking and go with a ready to donate non-visable option.

STEP 4:
From the pile of toys, Identify Your Child's Favorites!
     If you are having your child be involved, let them remove their favorites and put them in the keep pile! If you're worried that everything will be a favorite, give them a number, such as a Top 3 or 5!

STEP 5:
Consider Letting Go Of Toys That...

1. ...they have outgrown. You'll want your children to play with age appropriate toys. They are constantly growing, developing and learning new skills from the things they interact with. Discard the distractions that they are done with.
2. ...play by themselves. This would be talking toys where your child presses a button and the toy does what it does or says what it says. These toys leave no room for imagination.
3. ...are duplicates. There's really no need to have two of the same thing. Does your child really need 2 of the same stuffed animal!? No! T.V. show characters are a trap in disguise too, be careful! We fell for a T.V. show that sells toys and quickly learned that we had to set boundaries.
4. ...are too specific. This would be toys that have only one purpose. Nothing to learn, no other way to use it, a lack of creativity!
5. ...broken or unsafe. Of course we don't want our children to get hurt. If the broken toy is not fixable, don't donate it, toss it! If the unsafe toy is just not age appropriate for your child yet, store or donate it. If it's unsafe in general for anyone, toss it!
6. ...have missing pieces. Don't keep any incomplete toy sets, puzzles, or things that require assembly if there are missing pieces. There's no point in keeping a toy they can't even play with.
7. ...they don't like. I mean, if they don't like it for whatever reason. Now is the time to let it go.

STEP 6:
Toss The Trash and Remove The Donate Pile From Your Home.
     This part is so crucial. Get it out and get it out quick! If you have a vehicle, put the donate pile in the trunk of your car right away so you can drop it off at your local drop off donation center next time you're out and about. It won't do you any good sitting in your home STILL taking up valuable space!

AND YOUR DONE!!

       Now you should be left with your child's favorite toys and toys that will allow imagination, creativity, and have a sense of purpose. Your child will be happier having more space and less anxiety from being overwhelmed.

     Just remember that what your child really wants is you, they want to be around you! Maybe you wonder why there are toys all over your home.. that's why! Spend time with them, enjoy them, teach them new things, be active and creative. They will have so much fun just being with you! I'd say..that's better than any toy can ever give them!

     Happy Toy Downsizing!

          -Danika & Elli  

The Blog Got A Makeover!

     I realized that the bulk of my blog has been sort of a journal throughout my journey to living simple. While that was much needed for me in my toughest times, I want to focus more on being helpful to you. I do try to include a few tips that worked for me and encouragement along the way,; However, I want to do more posts similar to my most recent ones. I believe there is always room for improvement in everyone's lives, including mine. Our lives are constantly changing, therefore, nothing will ever stay the same, and that's okay.

     If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you may notice some of the changes already. I changed the template, layout, background, colors, fonts and finally got a helpful sidebar that displays my most popular posts. All of these new changes are exactly what I've been wanting for quite some time. It looks cleaner, the fonts express my style and the sidebar offers easy accessibility to other posts of mine that may be helpful or interesting to you.

     Some other changes I have made may not be as noticeable. I went through every past post of mine, deleting any that had no real substance or helpful information. As I mentioned before, I want my posts to be more helpful to you. The main events throughout my experience have remained available to you on the blog, however, even those posts got a few updates. Some posts got new titles to better reflect the information I shared and some I re-worded a bit to get a better message across.

     I hope you enjoy the new look!
          -Danika

Decluttering My Memory Boxes

     A memory box to me, has always been a place where I can store keepsakes and special memorabilia. However, I don't want to have more than two bins because I don't want it getting out of hand.

     As you can tell, my bins are quite full! I know I hold onto a lot of things and although I purged the bins a few months back, I need to take a deeper look through everything again. I want to be sure I'm only keeping and storing things with true meaning to me and things that make me happy to look back on. I look through my stuff quite often and I used to keep a lot of things that were hurtful to revisit; Not anymore though!

     First, I took everything out of the bins and placed them in the following categories, letters, cards, photos, personal, high school and other. This helped me so that I could have both a visual and make it easier to go through each category.

LETTERS:
     I already had them organized by giver. Letters are my favorite! However, I did stumble upon a few from 10 years ago that weren't all that meaningful so I let those go.

CARDS:
     I had three organized bundles; birthday, wedding and graduation. Then I had a pile of everything else; holidays, mother's day, and just because cards to name a few. I went through everything and only got rid of a few things, mostly invitations. I had an invitation from 9 years ago to my friends 16th bithday party! I don't think I'll be keeping any invites of any sort anymore unless they are very special to me. I mean, you get invited, you attend or not attend and then it's over. The only invitations I'll be keeping from now on will have to be very special, such as my grandparents 50th Anniversary party. Now that's a keeper!

PHOTOS:
     I had way more photos than I ever wanted. In fact, the majority were given to me. To downsize, I went through every photo and placed them in one of two piles, keep or purge. I mean, if you don't enjoy looking at a photo why keep it? Just saying!

PERSONAL:

     This pile consisted of artwork (given to me and my own), stories I've written, and everything else I wanted to keep from kindergarten through 12th grade. I let go of a lot of my artwork. I only kept what I actually was proud of. As for the K-12 stuff, I kept my report cards, awards, cards from teachers, and a few pieces of work to reflect my growth in learning. I got rid of a ton of other stuff that I didn't care about revisiting. Oh, in this category I also have family recipes. Those are staying for sure!

HIGH SCHOOL:
     I have this section separate from my K-12 because I actually did an additional two years at a different high school were I then graduated. I was a different person and in a very positive way. I accomplished many things and have so much that I'm proud of. I condensed this category into one binder to keep all of my stuff together and protected with page protecters. Behind this binder I did have my favorite first grade stuff. I didn't go through any of that. Those memories are precious!

OTHER:
     This is the last category I had. It's basically my non paper memorabilia. I had quite a few books that I already read but they had special writing inside. I didn't want to keep the books anymore so, I just took out the special pages. I know, I know, I ripped out some pages, but honestly those first pages won't be meaningful to anyone else who reads the books and it didn't affect any part of the stories. I put the books in my donation pile afterwards. I also had cds. I took them out of their cases and put them into our cd lock box instead. There was a bunch of other stuff too. I got rid of anything that wasn't worth keeping but kept everything that was!

     I think I did a great job of downsizing and condensing like items. It will be a lot easier now to find what I'm looking for and to put away any incoming things into their proper homes right away.

     I'm done! It was a bigger task than I anticipated but now it's tidy and clutter free! I plan to do more organization and labeling at a later time.

     I hope you enjoyed seeing my process. Thanks for reading!
- Danika

How To Declutter

WHAT IS CLUTTER?
Clutter is a collection of things laying about in an untidy mass.
Today, I'm going to help you declutter by walking you through 5 easy steps to removing unnecessary things from the untidy or overcrowded spaces in your home.


STEP 1:
Choose an area you want to declutter.
Today, I chose my vanity area. I've put this off for far to long. As you can see, it's a small yet troublesome area.

STEP 2:
Pick up trash.
This is so important. In fact, we generate a lot of trash in this area due to our constent use of cotton swabs, cotton balls and flossers. If the area you have chosen to declutter is a high trash area, consider adding a trash bin in the space. I added a small one last week and it has helped so much.

STEP 3:
Remove all items that do not belong in that space. If the item has a home, return it to it's proper home right away.
Although there were things that didn't belong at all such as electronics, toys, a drinking cup, and cleaning products, I was amazed that most of the clutter on my vanity had homes already right under the sink.

STEP 4:
For the items that do belong, remove them for a moment to wipe down any surfaces. 
This is a great way to start fresh. A cleared and clean area can provide you with new ideas for a more functional space.

STEP 5:
Replace the items that belong in the area. Consider function, and ways to improve common issues in the space. 
I realized that to solve my clutter issue, I needed to have my makeup organizer on the counter so i could easily put things away after using them. Also, my husband always has trouble getting the cotton swabs out of the tall apothecary jar; So I put them in my makeup organizer since we're low on them anyway, and filled the tall jar with my cotton balls instead.

Your area should now be decluttered and tidy! YAY! Now doesn't that look so much better!

     Thanks for reading! I wish you the best.
-Danika

Seasonal Downsize: Kids Clothing

     Children are constantly growing and because of that, their wardrobe needs to be gone through every so often to weed out the stuff that no longer fits or is no longer in season. This is the process I use just about every season change.

     First, I gathered ALL of my daughter's clothing and put it in one big pile. It's great to see everything all in one place. One person does not need THAT much clothing!

     Next, I went through everything. I had my daughter try on any questionable items for fit and weeded out anything I didn't love, putting it in a pass on pile.

Here is what I kept:

• 1 pile of Fall/Winter appropriate clothing (Same stuff she wore last Winter & Spring)
• 1 pile of Summer appropriate clothing
• Half her underwear
• 1/3 of her socks and....
• A small pile to Pack Away! 

     When it comes to the off season pile (Fall/Winter), I put it away in a separate area from what is currently appropriate. It helps me find my better choice options a lot easier. 

     When packing away the few items I wanted to keep for a next baby, I came across this dilemma. My designated storage bin was already full! So, when I put the new items in, it wouldn't shut.

     I knew I had to downsize! This was VERY hard. I knew that what was in this bin had already gone through a keep or purge process and everything in here were all things that I loved. Either way, I had to go through it all again. I'm very strick about keeping no more than one bin per 6 months for all her clothing, shoes and accessories. 

     I pulled everything out and separated into categories. Then separated by size the things I had a lot of. It was still very hard to choose what to let go of but here's a few things that helped. First, I looked for multiples. I had multiple pairs of pants same size, color and material. So I let the extras go. Another thing I did was check to make sure I could make a few outfits with the tops and bottoms, since there were colors involved, I found that I had kept some black stretch pants but couldn't find any tops I'd pair them with (I liked a softer look). Lastly, because I had a few collections of coordinating onsies I had to just pick my absolute favorites and let the others that were still great go to another child who could use them. 

     I re-packed my designated bin in a different fashion and now everything fits. There's even some extra space for some items that are still being worn but will be packed away to keep when I do this process again.

     Here is what I'm passing on. It doesn't look like much but it's not being used or being kept. I usually always try to find someone who will appreciate recieving hand me downs before I even start my go through process that way my newly created pile will already have a new home to go to.
     *The underwear I bought brand new and have never been washed or worn, I just bought two packages to get all the designs I wanted for my daughter. These ones are clean and brand new out of package. I'm sure my little cousin will love them!

     I hope any tips I shared will help anyone else who has a similar process they do. Thanks for reading.
-Danika

Project Garage Cleanout Complete!

     As of May 1st, my husband and I finally got rid of our garage rental. This was a huge milestone for me in my downsizing process. Everything is inside our apartment now and surprisingly most of the boxes and random items fit into one closet! It's unsightly but that's why I chose to tuck it away.

     When I first moved everything inside, we had planned on moving our daughter into our room and making her room a storage space. After some thought about it, I desided it probably wouldn't be the best idea with our crazy work schedules; So she stayed in her room. We still made her room the main storage space so we had an unloading zone and it took up half her room! I didn't want it to stay that way for long because it completely blocked the window and gave her no room to play; Plus it was not pleasant to look at. So that's when I moved everything around and fit everthing except our bins into her closet. It took up most of my day to rearrange everything but It looks so much better than before. I decided that it would look nicer having our bins exposed instead because they are uniform and organized at least. So I made one wall a stackout of our bins and the room looks great for the purposes it serves.

     As for my next project, I have less than a week to round up as many items as I can to get rid of at our annual community garage sale. Anything that goes out will not be coming back in. That's the best part! I've already filled 7 bins of stuff to part with and I have a few more areas around our place to go through. I want to make sure to part with anything that's sitting around doing nothing but acting as clutter.

     In other news, I recently purchased a whole bedroom set of vintage furniture for a steal! I was a little hesitant at first because we had already gotten used to living without bedroom furniture but the real wood will last far more years than then what we had before and now we have a place to put our pants and undergarments that lost their home when we purged our furniture last time. I'm actually super happy about the purchase I made. It completes our room and our room has remained clean and presentable for the first time in years. I actually leave the door open sometimes now.

     Anyway, not sure what the next journey will be but I'll fill you in when I figure it out.
     -Danika

Stress, Anxiety and Seeing the Positives

     Now that I can see all the progress that's been made inside my home and garage, I'm feeling new emotions. I love the openness and relaxed feeling that's becoming a physical sight but mentally I'm overwhelmed by the change. I want our lives to be easier and this to be a positive change. However, I can't help but feel a sense of emptiness, like we worked all this time for nothing because I gave so much of it away. I guess I understand how my husband felt a while ago about it. I also feel surrounded by bins and plastic. I don't want to live my life this way but I don't want to buy any furniture yet either. I don't want to regret any purchases. Ideally, I would love for all of our big furniture to serve multiple purposes to maximize space and usage.
     I'm not done downsizing yet, but so far having clear sight to the things we need and love has helped enrich our lives. The things we need are the things we use all of the time and the things we love are getting more attention and appreciation. We have to take care of everything that we own, that's why they say 'your stuff owns you'! So, having less makes the work load smaller and allows more time for what we love and who we love. We can invest our lives in things that make us happy and to me that's a rich life to live.
     This journey comes with so much insight and emotions. My life is constantly changing but I know change doesn't always have to be a bad thing. We grow, we learn and therefore we change.
Thanks for reading.
     -Danika

Defeat & Reaching A New Level

   This is a back story of how a lot of the clutter came into our lives, the first steps we took to overcome it, finding a passion and what I'm doing now to continue moving in a positive direction.

  In late 2013, I realized that I had a big shopping problem. All I wanted was a beautiful home but I didn't know what I wanted. Seasons were the only thing I knew to decorate for, but when one season ended so did my happiness about my home. It was like starting all over trying to find stuff that fit the new season. I would change things up all of the time; Each season was different. Different scents, different colors, a whole new look. I was buying different colored towels, pots and pans, new hand soaps, body washes, candles, bed sheets, pillows, table decor and more. It was crazy I tell you! Crazy!!! The best thing I could do at that point was to stop shopping and except that I didn't know what I wanted. Seasonal decor became more of a problem then anything else. I needed decor that could stay year round, but now was not the time or place for that.

     The aftermath of seasonal shopping, along with a bunch of other unused clutter we had already, had taken a huge toll on me and started affecting my family as well. I was always busy cleaning, laundry was endless and the disaster just never ended. I felt defeated! Stuff was everwhere all the time but you'd never know it. Whenever we'd have guests coming over, we shoved everything into our bedroom or in our daughters room and shut the doors. We faked that our home was kept clean and beautiful. We faked that things were okay, like we had our lives together, when in fact they were not. Something had to change. 

  I remember reaching one of my first breaking points. I was done with all of this! My relationships were suffering and it was my fault. I took all of my decor down and packed it away along with everything else. Clutter was piled up everwhere! I needed it out of sight. It was causing so much tension, frustration and stress. It was mostly me who had caused this problem and at the time, I wouldn't even let my husband help me fix it. It was just like an episode of hoarders. I had to go through everything myself. I have never felt I was a hoarder. I had never been called one either; Except by my husband a few months ago because I still had two sets of pots and pans that I'd change through the seasons. I got rid of a set after reflecting on that.

     Anyway, we bought as many bins as we could find in the stores near us. They had to be the same for a more uniform and clean look. Shortly after that time, we got our garage rental. We knew that we needed the stuff out of our living space. It was nice to have it out but the garage was an extra bill. No one wants that! As I have said before in a recent post, it wasn't easy going to the garage all of the time. I did often but it wasn't easy. Still, I needed to sort things and it wasn't going to get sorted on it's own.

     Months past by before I was inspired to start a blog. It was a blog about something totally different before I realized my real passion and focus was on fixing this disaster I had created. I wanted to get back to my happy place, being simple and organized. So that's been my goal.

     I research minimalism and simple living in my free time a lot now and it really helps take me to the next level. Everytime I let go of things, I feel that I learn something new. It feels like a mental process as much as it is a physical one. I'm finding it easier to let go of things that in my last great purge I wasn't ready to let go of. It's been a great learning process. This week I was really motivated and filled 10 bins of stuff to let go of. I'm so proud of myself. I can actually see a clearing of open space. I love it!

     If you're struggling with clutter like I was, I strongly suggest letting go. Just try it and see how free you feel afterwards. It's truly rewarding!
     Well wishes to you!
          -Danika

   

   

Downsizing!

 After the sucessful garage sale this year, I was left still burdened by the abundance of stuff we still had in our garage rental that we hardly ever used. It was almost always cold outside, raining or dark when I felt the urge to purge and I wasn't a fan of any of those conditions, which made it difficult to get things done. As a result, I brought all 42 boxes inside. I wanted to be able to go through them but at the same time it was overwhelming having it all available all at once; Not to mention cluttering our space and being an eye sore. I probably have moved everything inside and back out at least twice before I decided to bring it all back in again. I knew if I wasn't around it then my chances of steady progress would be slim.

I had purchased 10 more bins making it 52! Those filled up fast I tell you. After getting that job 6 months prior, I was buying a lot of new things. While part of it was good, it probably wasn't the best idea while trying to downsize. I did learn from it though and I tried the "one in, one out" method. Although, that really should be a 'one in, three out' method.

Anyway, around Christmas time I was jolted with energy and determination. I was going to do something about these bins that were sitting around stressing me out. So here's what I did. I took one week and went through bin after bin asking myself these simple questions. 

Is this something we use?

Is this something I love? 

Is this adding value to my life?

If the answer was no, it was gone!

Still to this day, I struggle with giving to Thrift Stores before offering my stuff to my friends and family. I know that even though I don't want certain things, others do. I know some things are really nice too so I like to offer it first. I would hate for my family or friends to have to thrift and pay for things that I donated; It's a struggle.

As Christmas was approching, I had a great idea. I was going to hold a purging party! I called it "The Great Purge". I was trying to downsize and I thought it would be a great opportunity for others to downsize as well. They could bring their stuff (if they wanted), hang out and take a look through mine. Anything left over was going to be packed into a giant box that I had and taken to the thift store for donation the next day. Plus, there was going to be a dessert competition. The winner could steal one thing they really wanted that someone else got at the end. It was exciting.

I managed to fill 15 bins of stuff to get rid of. I then organized it all so my friends could go through the stuff easier. 

Take a look!

&

Only one friend showed up the day of the party. She got first dibs on everything so I guess it was a win for her. She got a lot of nice stuff I had; Expensive stuff too. She brought some stuff over as well, so I got to pick through clothing for my daughter, and for others who were expecting kids soon. We enjoyed each other's desserts and It was a good time visiting.

The following day another friend of mine came by and checked out what was left. She got what she wanted and finally I was content. I could finally pack up the leftover stuff for donation; And that's what I did. I packed it all up and dropped it off at the thrift store. Except... It wasn't all of it! While packing, I kept a bin of things I felt someone else might still want. Now that it's been sitting around, I know not to do that again. It went nowhere.

Overall, downsizing that week felt amazing. I emptied a ton of bins and that put me one GIANT step closer to sucess for my family. Christmas that followed wasn't too terrible. We made a lot of progress with downsizing beforehand so the new things mostly were okay. To keep things under control, I keep a "Pass-It-On" bin to fill with unwanted, unused, and unloved things. I've filled 5 since then and for the sake of progress, I want to fill more. 

If you are feeling overwhelmed by clutter around you or find yourself always cleaning up when all you want to do is relax for once, I strongly recommend looking into downsizing. For most of us, our stuff owns us. It's time to turn this around and own it!

Until next time, 

                         Danika