On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my five favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my five favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.
Fave Five Comments. Enjoy!
Actually I couldn’t stop at five so there are six this week. Hee hee, it’s my blog and I’ll break the rules if I want to.Â
This comment from Amy in NY holds a number of good points when it come to clutter.
Here is a comment with some good advice about keepsake clutter form Minhus.
I loved this comment from Jane, it so nails what hobbies are for a lot of people. The key is to only invest in supplies you need NOW and then you will not get bogged down in aspiration clutter when the novelty wears off.
And this comment from Jo is the flip side to Janes comment. Both are correct of course because Jane has come to her realisation that it is purely aspiration while Jo will bide her time decluttering other stuff until she is ready to let go or not.
This comment from Lena and all the wonderful comments like it that I get from other readers and even knowing their are people out there benefiting from what I write that I never hear from is why I am still blogging about this subject after all this time. Helping people is a beautiful thing.
This comment from Sharron confirms that I was on the right path with my Crash diet or lifestyle change post from Thursday.
Fave Five Web Finds. Happy reading!
Amy in NY wanted to share this link with you on what and where you can donation used items. It is American based so some readers may not find it so useful or prefer to donate more locally. ~ missminimalist.com ~ Where to donate your stuff 101 places your clutter can do goodÂ
Hear is a great clothes clutter article that Cindy brought to my attention. Â The Happiness Project ~ Will clearing your clothes clutter make you happy? Oh yes!
Lynn asked yesterday for some helpful ideas on toy storage and here is a site that I thought had some good advice ~ internetarticlesdb.com ~ How-to-Choose-Toy-Storage-Bins.html I personally love this plastic storge bin idea.
Here is some good basic advice on decluttering from ~ womansday.ninemsn.com.au ~ Declutter-your-home-declutter-your-life
And last but not least here are some great ideas for decluttering your kitchen www.domesticguru.com ~ Declutter-the-kitchen
Today’s Declutter Item
This item has been taking up valuable space in the bottom of my wardrobe forever. I bought it when I was in the enthusiastic period of my scrapbooking days. My intention was to use it when attending scrapbooking retreats and classes to which I never went. It was such a handy bag or at least it will be to the lady who bought it from me for $51 on ebay.
Rolling Scrapbook Tote
Something I Am Grateful For Today
The beautiful breeze that wafted into town tonight is what I am grateful for today. We have had a very hot few days and this breeze is so refreshing. I hate being weak by turning on the airconditioner but it is imposible to sleep upstairs in our bedroom without it on hot nights. And I need my beauty sleep.
Thank you, Colleen! I appreciate it. 🙂 I really want storage that can be re-purposed when he no longer needs it for toys but there are so many options out there. I figured some parents might have experience and save me some trial and error. 😀
Hi Colleen
Yours was one of the first decluttering blogs I came across when I started my declutter journey and is one of the few that have stuck. I must mention however one of the things I love best. It’s getting your emails dated tomorrow (from my timezone). It sort of reassures me that tomorrow will indeed come because you got it first. Yes my grandmother was Irish!
Hi Shirls it’s nice to hear from you, it has been a little while. I am glad you are still with us and I hope your decluttering is going well. Thank you for being a loyal follower and I am glad that my blog has been just the right one to get you motivated. I like your timezone comment especially the reference to being of Irish heritage due to the logic of your thinking. I also have Irish heritage, with red hair green eyes and a name like Colleen Bridget there has to be a little Irish in me. It comes from both sides of the family.
We have storage solution similar to the one that Colleen suggested, and I actually don’t like it. My 5 year old can’t pull the bin off without help, so he never puts them away. They get caught on the one above and don’t seem to hold much. I am starting to use large, see-through buckets that had pretzels from the big box store. Large. Legos, blocks, cars, Little People, and more fit into them. They fit on the bookshelf, and can be recycled later or used for nails in the garage. My two cents!
Are they the round kind or are they stackable buckets? I guess I can’t picture them but I like the idea…
My son is using a similar concept to what Colleen linked but I find it’s harder for him to clean up. The “open” style is nice though, I admit.
http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Pretzel-Packs-Trick-Treats/dp/B002O0QUDK
I am in no way suggesting that consuming these in quantity is healthy, but we’ve collected over the years by gleaning from church events and trick-or-treating.
Haha! I think I would try Freecycle now that Halloween just ended. The amount of pretzels…oof.
Thank you for all of your advice. 🙂
Your son must have lots of tiny toys for him to have several of those on his toy shelf.
Hi Lynn, that is interesting. I must admit I have never used those bins but I often considered buying them when my son was younger but I felt I didn’t really need them because I already had a system in place. I wonder if the ikea system would work better they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
I used plastic storage drawers, similar to these http://www.organizeit.com/plastic-storage-chest-with-4-drawers.asp. I put the name of what was inside on the drawer, as well as a picture of the items, which I got from Google images – I didn’t photograph them all myself – for pre-readers and people in a hurry. We still have much smaller ones that we use for colored pens, crayons, markers, glue sticks & tape, stickers, etc.
Cindy, that’s kind of what I was leaning towards using. How did you “categorize” toys? (He categorizes his toys like “farm stuff” and “dinosaurs” and stuff.)
Do what works best for him. Work with him to make those decisions because what works in his mind the best will be the best system.
Good advice Cindy, I used those drawer for all sorts of things as well, including the kids toys.
I am humbled to make your Friday five Colleen, but seriously, that’s why i love 365 less things, You and Cindy just keep giving, i have read all the archives and honestly thought you had everything covered, yet you still keep posting thought provoking and sometimes challenging posts. The some posts just sum everything up and make so much sense!! I would love to share my career change with you all, but untill it is all in place i would feel like i’m tempting fate. All will become clear in the spring, lets just say i have everything crossed and make sure i shine bright enough to get one of the 20 places that 1500 people apply for!!
Off now to read all the linkys…
Sharron x
Hi Sharron,
we will let you keep your secret for now but we want to hear all about it no matter what the outcome once spring has arrived. I am intrigued and all sorts of interesting things are coming to mind. Oooo how exciting. I wish you success that’s for sure!
Lynn, I used “wire cube shelving” (Google Image it to get an idea). What I liked is that is was really flexible, you build it the way you need it, and you can undo/redo as time goes on. We used plastic boxes of different sizes (like shoes boxes) to put on the shelves for small toys.
Hi Natalie,
I am glad you mentioned those the wire cubing because for the life of me I couldn’t remember how I stored my kids toys and this was it. I used those wire cubes for years with plastic tubs and with sheets of plastic so stop things poking through the ones I didn’t use a tub on.
The concept of see-through-bins for toys (actually for other things, too) is brilliant. The part about them being plastic: not so much. I myself am guilty of buying plastic bins in order to get organized. I hate the thought that one day (when they break, and they do after years or use – some bad ones actually broke after a couple of weeks …) they will add to the plastic waste that will be around practically forever. I know it is a challenge to find good, affordable and kid friendly alternatives (though I think “kid friendly” is just so overdone these days …). But I hope everybody who is shopping for kids has in mind that they will not only live with the items for maybe a long time, but also with the waste the items become after use.
Good point Ideealistin.
A very good point. I do have some plastic drawers for my daughter’s stuff but most of her toy storage is wooden or fabric. I need to get a new bit of storage so this is a timely reminder…before I hit the 2nd hand stores or charity shops rather than buy something new!
Good idea Sarah. utilise what is already out there without adding to the demand and supply of new products. Every little bit helps.
Okay, at least one non-plastic suggestion of storage that is quite cheap and also grows with your kids I can think of: wooden crates can later be turned on their sides and stacked as shelves or attached individually als wall shelves. There is an Ikea picture to give an idea but I used to have wine crates stacked on top of each other as a book shelve in my late teens. I would have even wanted to take them with me when I moved out had they not fitted so perfectly in an odd nook in my parents house.
http://livethemma.ikea.se/node/22090
Ideealistin, those boxes look quite good. I am not sure how durable they would be but at least they aren’t plastic.
I like that idea! Someone once commented on the irony of how we moved away from plastic toys, but I store them in plastic see through bins on bookshelves. We do also have something wooden similar to what you pictured from Ikea. Arts and Crafts stores have them here, and they are simply 2, 3, or 4 squares all in one piece. I have 2 stacked on top of each other, and they each have 4 squares. So it is very stable. If I could start over, I’d have done that, but I have all the little pieces in bins for now.
The see-through bins are a good concept but using wooden ones as Ideealistin suggests, plus putting pictures of the contents on them, as Cindy suggests further up in the comments, is just as convenient and better in the long run.
This can be used for more than kids’ toys, too. I have bins in my pantry to hold batteries and extension cords//tape, string and elastic// markers, pens, highlighters, etc//and so on. I put a succinct label on each one. It has worked well. Unfortunately, I did this back when plastic bins were all the rage. But if I was doing it now, I’d go with wooden, or bamboo, or straw baskets in a rectangular shape.
Hi Jo, yes wooden is far more environmentally friendly thats for sure. i have lots of plastic container holding all sorts of things like you. And like you they were bought when we didn’t know better. I am glad to say that I have been donating to the thrift store the ones that have become excess to my needs as I declutter. I am pleased to say that some of them would have been around for over twenty years and are still in good condition. At lease I have treated them well and they haven’t ended up in landfill before their time.
I love that you post the favorite comments and other links each week. I usually don’t read comments, and you get me peeking at these jewels.
That is what it is all about Angela, not everyone has time to read through all the comment but at least this way you get a taste of what great contributions my readers make to my blog. As you can see from this week though, it is quite hard at times to limit it to five. As for the web links, these days I have to deliberately go in search of most of them because I don’t have time to surf the web much any more and I gave up on google reader because I just couldn’t keep up. I spend so much time writing and answering comments on my own blog that I don’t have time to read many others. Cindy gives me some good links at times as does the readers occasionally too.
oh, I made it to your fav five last week and didnt notice it at all… Well I have been away and didnt really catch up reading yet, but THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
as Sharron said: this is a quite challenging blog that coveres EVERY aspect of decluttering and still its not getting boring and the atmosphere is super friendly. I usually dont do blogs or forums or whatever you can subscribe to and participate, but here is different… 🙂
Hi Lena,
of course you make in to my fave five it was a great comment. I am glad you find my blog different to the rest in a good way that makes you want to participate. i am happy to have you with us. Thank you.