No-sew Fabric-covered box

Being my frugal self, I tend to store toys in cardboard boxes. They work great, but aren’t terribly attractive. Here are the results of a recent attempt to beautify the playroom. If you want to be super-thrifty, use a water-soluble glue so you can peel off, wash, and re-use the fabric once the box wears out. I can guarantee that I’ll at least consider doing that…

MATERIALS:

• Cardboard box
• Fabric
• Craft glue
• Duct tape (optional)
• Scissors to cut fabric
• sharp knife or exacto blade

Steps:

1) Cut flaps off of box.

2) Figure out how much fabric you need to cover the outside and inside of box and cut two pieces – one for the outside and another for the inside. The fabric should overlap each edge 1-2 inches.

 

3) Put craft glue on bottom of box.

4) Center fabric on inside of box and press into glue. Add glue to top inside edges of box.

 

5) Attach fabric. You could trim the corners before this step, but then you risk fabric fraying. We left ours intact, which is why it bunches a bit in each corner. I think it looks good that way, but this might bother a perfectionist.

6) Secure liner fabric to the outside of the box either with craft glue or duct tape. We used duct tape (I love duct tape), but failed to get a picture thanks to “must remove duct tape from all surfaces” Johnny.

7) Center the piece of fabric for the outside of the box. If you want you can glue the fabric to the bottom; we skipped this step but it might help keep the fabric in place.

8) glue outside fabric to the inside of the box, tucking under the edges to prevent fraying. Glue the sides first, and then fold in the extra fabric on the ends before gluing the edges. Any extra fabric that you don’t catch this way can be tucked in after gluing.

9) Add toys. Or three-year-olds.

 

These boxes would be even easier to make if you skipped the craft glue and went straight to duct tape. I didn’t do this because 1) we only have the traditional silver duct tape and none of the pretty colored stuff and 2) for some reason Johnny has an irresistible urge to remove duct tape from surfaces. Maybe it’s the challenge of peeling it off?

Picnic Table Talk: Organization

I try to provide my children with as many opportunities to explore their world and express themselves as possible, while maintaining a reasonably clean house. Organization is something I think about frequently, and a topic I have blogged about before.

I haven’t done much to organize learning in our house; I think very young children learn a lot by exploring their world, particularly if parents pay attention to and discuss their children’s interests. I am considering a loose adaptation of Sue Patrick's Workbox System to provide Emma and Johnny with things to do at their play table with minimal supervision when I am busy with the baby. If anyone has used workboxes in this way with young children, I would love to hear about it! Some things I would put in the workboxes:

• Play dough, sometimes on it’s own, sometimes with one of our homemade play mats.
• Pattern blocks, sometimes with templates like the ones I referred to in this post.
• File folder games like this one.
• Their travel felt boards with the activities mentioned in this post.
• Their crayon rolls and paper/coloring pages
• These paint brushes and paper

Have any other suggestions as to what I should put in these bins? I’d love any other ideas!

Here are a few things that work well for us in terms of physical organization:

• Divide craft materials into categories. I have some supplies (colored paper, fabric scraps, and pipe cleaners) that I let the kids use with minimal supervision. The next category is supplies that both kids can use with light supervision (crayons, markers, glue), followed by materials that require close supervision (small beads, scissors).
• Categorize toys. We keep our building toys in a different part of the house from stuffed animals and dolls, which are also separate from books. Puzzles are kept separately from other toys also.
• Make clean-up fun and easy. Each toy has a place where it always goes, and I use containers that are easy for my kids to put toys into. Sometimes they will clean up a toy on their own, but more often I clean up alongside them. If they’re reluctant to help pick up, we’ll sing a song and/or turn clean-up into a game (who can find the most red duplos, who can pick their toy up the most quickly, etc)
• Catch destructive mode before it’s full-blown. Emma and Johnny both occasionally go into destructive mode. For Johnny, this typically means he needs a nap; for Emma it’s a signal that she needs to do a structured activity.

What organizing tricks simplify your life?

Cleaning Tips

First, a link to 66 All-Natural Cleaning Solutions (found via my wonderful sister E). This list of ways to clean using basic household ingredients included several ideas that were new to me.

Then, a few favorites from our house not included in the above list:

• Use a regular rubber eraser to get crayon off of floor tiles and walls.
• Baking soda (coupled with some elbow grease) to get soap scum off of the bathtub.
• When kids want to play with toys that come with many small pieces (blocks, beads, legos), put a blanket or sheet on the carpet and have them play on top of that. At the end, gather up the corners of the blanket and all the tiny pieces go into a pile in the middle for quick and easy pickup. I mentioned this idea to my mother and she pointed out that for even quicker cleanup you can designate a sheet for each toy and put the entire sheet (with the toys inside) in the bin at the end of playtime. Or you can get crafty and make special play mats for all the toys with nice ties to close them up. Maybe I’ll do that someday, but for now Emma knows that toys with small pieces may only be played with on the fleece Monkey blanket.

On the topic of crayon on walls, yesterday Johnny stopped coloring on his coloring page and started coloring on the wall. I told him he couldn't color on the wall and took him back to his coloring page, where I started commenting on how pretty his coloring was. He took my hand, walked me back to the wall, pointed proudly, and said, "Pretty wall!" Looks like we have a ways to go before he gets the whole coloring boundaries thing...

What are your favorite tried and true cleaning tips?

Frugal toy storage

If your home is anything like mine, you have toys with small components. I’ve started storing mine in the “toss or re-use” containers made by Gladware and Ziploc. So long as you stick with one brand they stack really nicely for shelf storage. They are relatively cheap, they come in a range of sizes, they seal tightly, and they are clear so you can see which toy is inside which container.

Because they are designed to hold hot food, these containers are made out of polypropylene (recycling symbol 5) - one of the safest plastics.

I also use these containers to store a few pieces from a multi-piece toy set like  our wood pattern blocks (see top container in picture). These particular blocks came in a set of 250. I didn’t want to pick up 250 small wooden blocks every day, so I put together a couple kits of 36 (6 of each shape) in smaller containers. This way Emma has enough to make some fun patterns and to use her geometric shapes play mat, but few enough that cleanup isn’t overwhelming.

What are your best toy storage tips?

Frugal Organization

I have long admired the organization bins sold in Ikea and other stores, but could never bring myself to pay for them. I recently discovered that shoeboxes make an excellent thrifty alternative. I just put them in drawers as they come, but you could cover them with paper or fabric if you want to make them look nicer. I don't have a before picture of this drawer of Emma's, but just picture it stuffed to the brim with clothing. It has all of the same articles of clothing in it now, but there is plenty of space to open and shut the drawer and I can easily find the shirt I'm looking for.

Toy storage

I like to use the clear plastic totes that sheets and comforters are sold in for toy storage - they are clear so kids can see what is inside, they zip securely shut, and they usually have some sort of handle to be carried about with.