9/7/10

Stuffed Animal Storage?

My kids ... well, my girls ... LOVE stuffed animals, and have names for them, and sleep with them.  It's darling, but there are a lot of stuffed animals.  And the stuffed animals end up EVERYWHERE.  

So, I am looking for storage solutions.  The important things we need with this storage solution is that it keeps their room looking nice, the animals are easily accessible, clean up is fun or easy, and it is INEXPENSIVE.

Any Solution Ideas???


We tried the bean bag idea,
 but the dog decided it was HER spot, and it just was a PITB.  It wasn't worth the expense for a real Boon pod (these run about $60 for the smallest), and a regular bean-bag cover just didn't work for us.

As a kid, I remember friends having little corner netting hammocks, like this:
cute, but the stuffed animals get used daily, and I don't see the hammock being sturdy, though it is cheap!


This is a cute concept:
but not practical for my children ... seriously, who wants stuffed animals in the zoo, when you can get your sister into the zoo!   The Jail The Zoo would hold every possible stuffed animal around my house, but it would end up holding the children in the house. I wonder if any babies have gotten their heads stuck in the cute storage, even with the stretchy "bars" ... ever the safety-panicker, my husband would hate this option!


The simplistically classy idea of a basket also isn't a good option for us:
I adore the look of baskets, but my girls HAVE baskets - DARLING baskets, but the stuffed animals NEVER make it back to the basket ... it's not that fun for clean-up ... and it's almost TOO accessible.

We've tried a wooden toy-box, which didn't work well.  Plus the hinges got so beat-up, that I need to figure out how to fix it, or just take it out of their room.

We tried under-the-bed bins, but they hated that, and things got so messy!  I would even tape the bins to try to safe my sanity, but it was just miserable for everyone.


Some ideas I DO like right now:

Blogger HOMESCHOOL DISTRACTIONS made her own  stuffed animal "Zoo" - I love that the top shelves are the zoo, and the bottom shelves are open for toys and such.  
I'm such a sucker for DIY projects!


Maybe I'll try the shoe storage solution:
I even have one of these I could try out!


If I could afford it, the VIA furnature bins are my dream solution:
I've seen similar bins at target ... still not cheap though!


Target also has these:
which are really cute, and we already have one that holds our children's book collection ... I wonder if it would work for stuffed animals too, especially with the cute animal fabric bins they have.

There's always the Ikea Solution (they seem to have a solution for everything!)
I wonder how well those would work ... for $5 they might be worth giving a try first, but I do worry - most of my kids stuffed animals are from Build-A-Bear, and I don't know that the large stuffed animals would fit well ... it seem like more of a beanie-baby sized solution.

Any more ideas????

1 comment:

Jordan said...

I like the shoe storage idea- how cute!!! Or the shelves and fabric bins from Target- we use those, and they work great for us! Good luck!