Tuesday, January 08, 2013

A Small Space Solution

Our home is quaint.  It's cozy.

In other words, it's small.

It had been perfect for our little family of three plus our large golden retriever, but when Santa dropped off so many gifts for Liam this year, we began to wonder how we'd fit it all in.

The toys, clothes, stuffed animals, and books we received made navigating into the Nursery almost impossible. With the closet already stuffed, Michael and I were still climbing over boxes and piles of clothes just to get to the diaper changing station. 

We feel so grateful for the generosity of our loving family members and friends, and we want to make sure that each gift is appreciated and well-used.  But it was just impossible to keep everything out, always at our finger tips.  We needed a space-saving solution.

Finally, it hit me.  A roll of masking tape and my camera phone was all that was needed to fix this problem!

First, I labeled each gift with the name of the person who gave it to us by writing on a small piece of masking tape and affixing it to the toy itself.

Then, I decided to take a photograph of each of the gifts he received this year.  I'm saving all of the photos on my phone so that I can access them quickly for look-up later. 

The toys will go down into our basement for now, and then, each week, I'll check out the photos on my phone, choosing 3 toys, 5 books, and 3 stuffed animals to bring up for use during that particular week.  The masking tape labels will remind me who gave the gifts to us, and--just in case I were to forget--I can re-affix the tape to the item before it descends back into the basement at the end of a week.

Rather than having our living space cluttered with too much, I think this Rotation of Gifts will keep Liam entertained and excited throughout the whole year.  :)