Ok- This comes from a teacher point of view as well as someone who has a degree in child development. You can take it for what it is worth: In Classrooms (like daycares and preschools and K room) kids are required to pick up at least two sometimes three times a day. The reasoning being that a. other kids play with the toys and the deserve to start fresh too b. kids can't think in clutter very well and neither can teachers. c. safety in that you can't walk without tripping etc. also is part of the reasoning here. I carry this into my house to some degree. I have three kids 5, 3, and 1+. Two boys and a girl. I let them play with what they want and they can play with how they want provided they are not taking away from each other-- playing nice. And now my home and my theory in practice--- We pick up daily - once before nap I expect everything to be picked up and once in the evening before their father gets home. If everything is picked up and if their father is not home yet, they can watch a video. This works great for my son who is a tvholic. The exceptions to picking up completely are this: 1. if they have some creation before nap- a tent house, a train world, polly pocket home whatever they can leave it out until dinner time, as long as it's out of the way. Not on their bed at nap time for example. At dinner time though, things are picked up. 2. If it is on the train table. We bought a big train table with the buckets at the end of the table. I rotate toys including what is in the train table buckets. - blocks, legos, little people, etc at any given time are in the train table buckets. IF they set up this elaborate train set or a great lego building, as long as it is on the train table, they can leave it there. The train table toys are usually building toys that typically get moved and torn down and rebuilt daily so those change pretty quickly and get put up to make room for other buildings. As for sorting out toys into the right bins daily- I don't do that. We have a big toy box in the front room where they play. Some toys are behind the couch in the plastic shoe boxes. Polly Pockets, etc - those things with small pieces. Those are the toys that they typially pull out from behind the couch, open the box and play with them in their room or on their bed- the little pieces typically get put back into the right box. But I don't worry about it. When we pick up, whatever is on the floor get thrown into the toy box. The kids help me pick up and if they want I do let them put the small pieces in the right bin, but if I'm helping I grab and toss. And because I rotate toys- once a week or every two weeks I dump everything out and the kids and put toys up, resort as needed, exchange toys. This is when the polly pocket shoe that got thrown in the toy box gets put back with it's mate in the right bin. Etc. I have also gotten rid of many toys. As I write this however I can think of train things I need to get rid of because my kids have never really played with it. Sigh. I kept it thinking one of the other kids would like it but so far- no luck. It really is that simple and really that complicated. I just make the time to rotate toys. Everything centers around that. When we rotate toys everything gets sorted out perfectly. Because we rotate toys not everything is out at once and that makes it easier to a. clean house b. pick up every day c. control how many toys are out with small pieces d. organize and make sure everything is in the right bin. As for your daughter dragging things out of the house - we take things out to the car but they stay in the car. When we go in the store- the toys stay in the car. As for all of her flat type creations- I also bought an art portfolio. IT's like a big envelope. I let my son keep all of his papers in there. He keeps every paper he touches. They all go in there. It sits at the end of his bed. When it is stuffed I go through it- sometimes alone, sometimes with him. It works for us. Big papers and small papers go in here. But only paper. We have also done some things like I sat down and whipped up some bags for toys. My two older kids love to fill things with things. A small bin may have five cars, three dinosaurs, four crayons and sixteen pieces of paper. They love to just stuff things in things. I made some bags. I whipped up bags and this makes it easy to carry things around. If my boy's snowbear needs crayons for the day (becaue my boy is like your daughter with an animal whose needs change) - then snowbear puts the crayons in the snowbear bag and off we go. I have probably 10 bags designated for things- blocks, small dolls, etc. I have maybe another 10 bags with drawstrings for anything. They just get thrown in their toybox empty at the start of two weeks and stay filled until it's time to rotate toys. So- based on my usual long winded response here are my thoughts for you: 1. Can you designate a place as a compromise- train table creations are ok, otherwise they go down? Can you set a time that they have to pick up? Daily? I do it when their dad comes home so they know exactly what their schedule is. Can you do it on a set day? Every other day everything is totally picked up? I lean to a daily pick up at a set time so it is routine. I agree that it is the process at this age - the process of making the creation is important not the creation itself. 3. Can you provide your daughter some place for her creations? This ties into question one but also for her small books for blueberry? for the small things he has to have? A bag? An oatmeal box with a string tied to it? an art portfolio? 4. Do you have to have all of their toys out all of the time? And after having said all of that- I think what you are really looking for is not the organizing help but more of the parenting help. Do you allow your children to make creations and leave them? And How do you tackle this as a mother? I'm not sure I helped at all. What I would say to you as a teacher if you came to me is Go for it- encourage the creativity. When you see them no longer playing with a toy or creation show them how to take it down and put the components up. Or if they can no longer play wiht a type of toy because all the pieces are spread apart and put in wrong places, help them sort them out. You are the mother and you know best. Ginger

I'd start by figuring out exactly what it is that you need to have storage for, and how much of it you need to store. You need some inactive storage space for the memorabilia. That could be drawers, shelves with boxes, or a closet. Sort through the memorabilia and discard anything that you no longer want to keep. Figure out how much you have left, and how much more you think you will accumulate. You need to store scrapbooking supplies. How much of which type do you tend to keep on hand? Do they need drawer space, or shelf space? Same for the kids' art supplies--how much will you be storing/using? This requires getting all the scrapbook supplies in one place, all the kids' stuff in one place, etc. You really can't plan the storage until you know what it is that you need space for. Then I'd go to a couple of stores that sell closet supplies and see what they have to offer--there are a lot of options out there. One thing to consider is that the most easily accessible storage space should go to the things you use the most. The least accessible space should go to the things you use the least, like the memorabilia.

I have a plastic nine drawar rolling unit that I got for about $20-30 bucks at a discount store and a bunch of those plastic in/out boxes for all of my paper which is divided into cardstock/patterned and by color. I have all of my punches, dry embossing, stencils, colored pencils, chalks, stamps etc. in the big plastic drawar unit, and then I have a "crop in style" "paper sticker binder" That was my best thing for getting organized. I had hundreds of stickers, die cuts, alphabets etc. and tried using baseball card holders and other types of clear plastic envelopes, but they just were never the right size and always fell out of their little compartments. This product has a little lip which keeps all of the stuff from falling out. You can get them on the Current website under their scrapbooking supplies, and they have every size of pocket imaginable. It wasn't cheap, but I know I've saved money on stickers because I can actually see what I have and can use it instead of buying more of those fish stickers that I thought I had.

Hi! I am new to this site. I just wanted to say that I found a great way to organize my die cuts. I bought a Sterilite plastic (kind of see through) box from Walmart. Seperated my die cuts from larger ones to smaller ones and named them and alphabetized them. I cut down some index cards and taped tabs for the names of the die cuts and then filed them like that. It's very portable and organized. I think you could also just do themes though like I have in my sticker binder instead and it would be just as easy to find the die cuts that way. Best of luck in your organizing!