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♦Clips - Get creative. Try clips normally used in
the laundry room or bathroom for drying hand-wash items to hang lightweight stuffed
animals by a floppy ear. On the chance a clip breaks, make sure everyone is old enough to know better than to
swallow any broken parts!
♦Storage
Lockers -
You could use kids
toy storage lockers to hold stuffed
animals. Search for "kids storage lockers." They usually come in several sizes and colors.
And they likely have safety features already built-in for children.
♦Hampers
- With an open
Pop-Open Hamper
or cube, your child can just toss her
stuffed animals into it daily. It's more convenient. It doesn't have to be a child's
hamper
 either. It just needs to be a safe
one
that your child can use
for stuffed animal storage. Wal-mart carries a pop-open hamper for a few bucks.
Check the laundry section (where you find hangers, irons, etc.). They are
usually mesh and really lightweight. And if it doesn't last a year, at a few
bucks a pop, you can get another one next year. But they are actually very
sturdy (we use one for laundry and it's held up fairly well considering we're
not particularly careful with it).
♦A
big oval willow basket (laundry basket type) on the floor in the closet
may also work well and look cute. Check your nearest major discount retailer in
the adult craft section where the baskets are sold or check a major arts and
craft store in the basket section. I've seen these inexpensive baskets in both
of those places. Spray paint it any color you'd like to brighten it for your
kid's room; they usually just come in the natural light sort of yellow/brown
color. But the natural color is nice too. Willow is very lightweight. Even your kids can carry the basket
around. They're quite durable.
♦Also check out these
open
storage cubes
pictured below that I saw at Organize.com.
I don't know if they still carry them but I'm sure you can find something
similar there. These are a good height for a child to reach into -- and
convenience is important with any stuffed animal storage and organization
method. Let her have some fun by sorting all the stuffed dogs into one cube and
the stuffed cats into a separate cube (that is if she thinks dogs and cats can't
live nicely together).
Or sort the stuffed animals by small, medium and large.
You might also consider the cubes that face
in the other direction, where the open part is facing you; those stackable
laminate and wire ones are found everywhere these days from Target to Organize.com.
And you might find they keep dust off better than a cube that is open at the top
like these (I believe they do because I use them in the closet for storing
office supplies and I don't see much dust collecting on what's in them).
On the other hand, a pop up cube like this would certainly
hold a bunch of any sized stuffed animals and it's light enough that you could
carry it to the closet. And dust won't collect much if your child plays with the
stuffed animals daily. I'm sure you can find some canvas cubes like that on wheels too, ones
made specifically as children's carts or such, that would be almost the same
thing.
These are just a few stuffed animal storage tips and
organizers but perhaps you got some ideas from reading about them.
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