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