organization

Easy Dress Up Station

July 16, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Are dress up clothes taking over your house?

I have enough issues with regular laundry to then pile on top a bunch of princess costumes, my house was becoming a wreck quickly.

I wanted to create an area in our play room that would be fun to play and use but that would also create some organization for all of the stuff! This easy dress up station was just the right fit for our little princess.

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By creating some order to our princess mess, I found that my daughter is actually playing with this stuff!

Before she either couldn’t find her stuff because it was wherever she dropped it or I had shoved it in the bottom of the closet in an attempt to clean up. Now that she can easily see her pretty dresses and jewels, she usually becomes Belle or Sophia once or twice a week!

And if LOL Surprise Dolls are also becoming tiny little residents in your home, check out this LOL Organizer.

What you Need for the Easy Dress Up Station:

Adjustable Garment Rack

Princess Wall Art

Wood Wall Clear Knob Organizer – I got mine at Hobby Lobby and can’t find the exact same thing. These are really pretty and these are reasonably priced and would be cute.

Lots of Princess dresses, play jewelry and little girl high heels.

Setting Up the Easy Dress Up Station

The adjustable garment rack took less than 15 minutes to put together and that was the first thing that I did. Once that was ready, my daughter helped me hang up all of her princess dresses.

The dress up area isn’t just limited to princess costumes. She can dress up as a chef, vet, or a girly super hero.

I stored extra dress up clothes and play shoes at the bottom of the rack. (Don’t mind that missing Elsa from the blue shoe! Hey, they still work!)

Next, I had my daughter stand in front of where the mirror would go. I did this because I wanted it to be a “kid friendly” mirror. (not hung so high that she wouldn’t even be able to see her face)!

We hung the mirror so that she could see her full princess ball gown in all it’s glory.

The princess wall art was hung level with the top of the mirror. The hooks went right under the art so that she could easily reach her purses and jewels.

I set our vanity next to the easy dress up station so that she can move right on to hair and make up once she gets dressed. I love that this area provides a fun play area for kids to use their imagination.

Plus it helps to get the princess dress mess off my floor.

If your pretend play costumes are causing chaos, I hope you try this super easy dress up station solution for your playroom!

Once your playroom is in order, check out this bathtub toy organizer hack so that you can see the bottom of your tub again!

How To Make A DIY Family Command Center

September 29, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

A DIY family command center will help you organize your family’s important documents, mail and schedules. My simple layout helps make the family command center area functional and cute.

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

With school back in session, I thought a quick post on our family command center would be a fun way to show how we stay organized during this busy time of year.

Just so we are clear on how “together” I have my life, check the date on the calendar. I am writing this in September 2018 and I took that picture today. My littlest babe was born last October and apparently that is when my organization stopped. Oh my. How has it been almost a year!? I am going to update that calendar today!

DIY Family Command Center

While I was searching for organization items for my command center, I found lots of ideas on Pinterest but a lot of them did not tell me where to buy the products. I don’t know about you but I need an easy buying guide (particularly one that I can get online). Because two kids at a retail store, ain’t nobody got time for that! So I decided to show mine with links to where you can purchase the same or similar items.

I actually added most of these items to my Amazon wish list and asked for items for Christmas one year. If you are needing things to put on your Christmas or birthday list, consider something like this. I love all the different price points so it makes it easy for someone that is looking for a small gift for you or maybe a slightly larger one.

Here is a list of items that I have included in my DIY family command center.

Wire Document Rack with Chalkboard Labels – The wire document rack has a chalkboard label on each basket. I use these to separate my items and my husband’s. We put mostly mail in the bins and I save coupons in mine. I plan to get some cute file folders to clean this area up a bit. If you wanted to keep a file per child with permission slips etc. this would be a good place to do that.

Magnetic Chalkboard – I use this for all kinds of things. The magnetic board uses magnetic clothespins to hang schedules, display permission slips that need to go to school and reminders. The chalkboard is used to write notes or reminders to myself or other family members.

8×10 Frame – I use the frame for the monthly calendar (you know the one I haven’t changed in 11 Months). I can’t believe I admitted to that! I type up every event that I know of on the printable calendar. Then you can do one of two things for last minute events. Leave the glass of the frame off so that you can write on your paper calendar with a pen or put the glass on and use a dry erase marker for your last minute changes.

Picture Frame with Clip – I love the clip feature because it makes it super easy to switch out photos. I love to change out pictures of the family according to the seasons or holidays. It adds a personal touch to your family command center and they are the reason that you need this organizational tool! Right?

Monogram Letter – I added this as a decorative filler to square off the space. If you don’t love the monogram, you could do a small clock to keep you on time to all your events.

All Because Two People Fell In Love Sign – A friend of mine gave this to me but I found a similar item on Amazon. I just love the words on this. All this chaos that I am trying to organize is all because two people fell in love. Such truth.

My family command center looked exactly like this for more than a year. It is located on a wall that was bare before leading from our garage to our kitchen. The perfect spot to collect mail when you walk in the door or grab a permission slip off the magnet board before you leave.

The item on the top is most definitely my favorite item on this family command center wall. It captures a glimpse of our family in a whimsical way (see all those girls I told you about in the About Me section). An artist local to me creates these on large pieces of wood. The rustic look of the wood combined with the fun character drawing of our family perfectly completes this wall. I even love how she put that huge bow on our 4 year old daughter’s head – that is so realistic. She doesn’t go anywhere without a larger than life bow! We are in the South after all, the bigger the bow the better the mama (or so they say).

If you have any questions about this easy to set up Family Command Center, write me a comment below! I hope this helps you get ready for the new school year.

If you need a way to get your bathroom organized from all the kid toys, read this bathroom organization hack.

LOL Doll Storage Solution

June 30, 2018 by Stacy Craft 2 Comments

Who would have thought that a tiny little doll with microscopic shoes and accessories would take the little girl world by storm? My 4 year old is completely obsessed with LOL dolls. She walks around with the collector’s guide telling anyone that will listen about all the dolls that she wants. As her collection grows, so does the mess. I wanted an easy LOL doll storage solution that would organize all those small pieces but still be easy for her to access.

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

LOL Doll Storage Solution

My first thought was to use a hanging toiletry bag with clear pockets. I still think it would be a good idea, especially to hold a lot of the dolls. I may end up trying it if our collection continues to grow. My daughter has requested “all the LOL dolls” for her birthday. I’m not facilitating that request but if I know her grandfather, I may have more LOL dolls than I want very soon!

We usually set the dolls up on her play table or the kitchen table for play time. When trying to come up with an LOL doll storage solution, I decided that we needed something that would work well on top of a table. Something with lots of compartments is important because of all the tiny pieces.

I spend what feels like hours per week looking for a lost LOL doll shoe that is smaller than my pinkie fingernail. Desperation was setting in for an LOL doll storage solution that would keep all of the stuff in one place.

LOL Dolls Tackle Box Style

I bought 2 different boxes to see what worked best for our stash of dolls. Here is how it went!

Larger Tackle Box Organizer

The larger box worked better with the regular size LOL dolls. I liked that the interior plastic inserts can be removed so you can make some larger compartments for the dolls and you can keep smaller ones available for shoes, clothes and accessories.

Smaller Tackle Box Organizer

The Smaller Tackle box came in a set of 3. These are a lot smaller than the larger ones and work best with the LOL little sisters and accessories.

Hope this helps you reclaim your house from the tiny army of LOL dolls that has overtaken it. If you have a ceramic tile tub that toys have also taken over, check out my post on how to fix that.

How do you organize your kid’s LOL doll stash?

Bath Toy Organization Hack for Ceramic Tile Showers

April 17, 2018 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Easy bath toy organization hack that works on ceramic tile walls.

Toy Takeover

If you have toddlers you know that the bath toys take over a bathtub hard and fast. Typically I love watching my kids find fun and joy in something as simple as a bath, however, the mess drives me crazy. In the past I had used those little suction cup scoops to organize toys but when we moved, I found that the suction cups will not stick to ceramic tile. I needed a bath toy organization hack to help rescue my tub.

Bath Toy Organization Hack

You can easily take your tub back with a simple, common bathroom item. A shower rod! If your bath organizers won’t stick to your ceramic tile, just hang a shower rod on the back side of your tub. I bought all of my stuff from Target, including the tub scoops.

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

What You Need

Shower Curtain Rod – Check to see what size you will need.

Bath Toy Scoop (or two!)

That’s it! Just Hang your rod, fill your scoop with toys and hang the handle of the scoop over the shower rod. You will want to make sure your rod is close enough to the back wall to catch the handle when you drape it over. I hung ours about 3-4 inches from the wall. So easy!

Look at that, a clean tub!

I hope this bath toy organization hack helps you keep the bathtub kid clutter to a minimum. Now someone else could probably take a shower in there without having a sea of Mickey mouse squirters and rubber duckies floating at their feet!

Do you have a great hack that you use to organize bath tub toys?