What area of your home would you like help organizing?
I recently asked this question in an online survey and 90% responded with the answer, “playroom or kid toys.”
As a Mom to a 4 and 1 year old (with my third baby due any day), I understand the struggle. It’s hard enough to find the motivation to pick up toys let alone organize them. After all, the kids will just destroy everything again. Right?!
Playrooms/kid toys are overwhelming. Therefore, I encourage you to focus on just one area of the playroom/toys at a time.
Todays focus: PUZZLES
In our playroom we have a 16 cube shelf from IKEA. Unfortunately, I don’t have a “Before” picture. But pretend with me that 4 cubes were filled with boxes of children’s puzzles.
I desperately wanted to condense the puzzles down to 1 cube. However, I didn’t want to get rid of any puzzles.
How did I condense 4 cubes of puzzles down to 1? With this EASY Game-changer tip: PUT PUZZLES IN BAGS INSTEAD OF BOXES!
Condensing 4 cubes of puzzles down to 1 gave our playroom more room for games and art supplies.
In the red basket are bags filled with puzzles. Putting puzzles in bags instead of keeping them in the boxes they came in made a big difference!
Organizing PUZZLE Steps:
Step 1: Gather supplies. You will need either CLEAR binder pouches or Ziploc bags, a scissors, permanent marker and your puzzle boxes.
I recommend clear binder pouches because they are great quality, inexpensive, and see through. You can find these pouches in the school/office supplies section in any store.
Ziploc bags are another great option! You likely have them on hand already, are easy to replace if they rip, are see through, and come in different sizes.
Step 2: Take the puzzle pieces out of the box and place them in your clear binder pouch or Ziploc bag.
Step 3: Label/Put image of puzzle inside the clear binder pouch or Ziploc bag along with the puzzle pieces.
If I am putting a puzzle in a Ziploc bag, I write the number of puzzle pieces on the bag with a permanent marker.
A lot of puzzles come with a mini poster inside the box. Simply slide that poster inside the bag with the puzzle pieces.
If the puzzle does not include a poster, cut the image directly off the box and place inside of the bag with the puzzle pieces.
Step 4: Continue steps 1-3 until all your box puzzles are in bags. Put all the bags in a basket or box.
Step 5: Enjoy your organized puzzles in a condensed space!
I only do the above steps for puzzles that are in BOXES. When it comes to wooden peg puzzles, I neatly stack them on top of each other and place them on the playroom bookshelf.
How do you organize your kids puzzles? Will you try this approach? Why or why not? As always, I would LOVE to hear and learn from YOU!
2 thoughts on “Tidy Tip Tuesday: Organizing Puzzles”
I LOVE this idea! Right now I just have them in a big clear tote (which takes up space and is a disaster inside!) thank you so much for this idea!
I prefer to keep the boxes. They stack nicely on our shelf. Here is what I do:
I want my kids to have puzzles. And variety. I also know that less is often more fun and zen. So I decide how many puzzles we actually need. Then I put away puzzles and just have a few at a time on our puzzle shelf. Every so often I switch up the hidden puzzles with the ones they play with.