Fun Storage Projects for Young Children
By Rochelle Caviness
Getting your kids to put away their 'stuff' can be a major headache. Yet, there is a simple way to ease the pain - make 'putting away' fun. One easy way to do this is to allow your children to have a hand in creating the storage units into which their 'stuff' goes.
Trunk Decorations
Trunks make ideal storage units, but they can be rather bland. So, let your kids spice up their own trunks…
Pictures cut from magazines can be glued to the inside of the lid, creating a collage.
The outside of the trunk can be decorated with posters or the children's own art work.
Let the kids paint the trunk, using water-based latex paint. It washes up easily when wet, but once dry is water-resistant.
Decorative Tins
Tins make attractive and hard to break containers for storing small stuff.
Magazine pictures can be glued to a tin.
Your children can have hours of fun gluing various shaped noodles to the tin. Once the glue is dry, the noodles can be sprayed painted or shellacked to preserve them.
Tins can be covered with fabric and bows.
Painting tins is also fun, and allows the child to personalize them.
Don't over look such items as old paint cans. Not only do they make good storage containers, but they also come with a handle. The handle makes it convenient for the child to carry the can around the room as they pick up smaller items.
Bookcase Decorating
Bookcases and shelving units can provide a lot of storage space, but can be uninviting for a small child.
Metal shelves can be painted or decorated with stickers.
You may be unwilling to let your child 'have-at-it' when it comes to wooden shelves and bookcases. However, kids can customize even these higher-end products.
Cut multicolored pieces of construction paper into strips about 1˝ inches wide. Keeping one edge flat, encourage the child to cut a pattern into the rest of the paper.
These strips can then be glued onto the edge of the shelves with regular household glue. Thereby creating a decorative and multicolor edging for the shelf.
When the child tires of the design, or when it can become damaged, it is simply ripped off and the glue removed with warm water.
Added Space
Hang a small hammock in one corner of the children's room, and have them make a game of tossing their stuffed animals onto it.
Turn a laundry bag into a basketball game. Take a pillowcase or laundry bag and sew it to the rim of an indoor basketball board. Mounted to the back of the child's bedroom door, it will encourage them to 'sink' their dirty clothes into the bag.
A vinyl shoe holder can be painted, decorated with fabric, or covered with stickers. Hung on the back of a closet door, it offers lots of little cubbyholes to store small toys or accessories.
