Organizing Toy Bins with Labels { DIY Organization }

So there was a period of time that the toys in my house were making me absolutely CRAZY.  I mean how do two kids accumulate so many toys? And how do the toys, despite my constant picking up and organizing get all over the house and so mixed up that you can't find a full puzzle or a game or toy with all its pieces anywhere? And let me just tell you that legos are not the same thing that they were when I was a kids. What happened to plain old rectangular lego bricks that you would build a lego house with? The lego pieces nowadays are teeny tiny eensy weensy and they are everywhere and now I have a baby again so that freaks me out. And not only the legos are everywhere but ALL the toys in my house are everywhere!  I was seriously ready to just open up the front door and through them ALL. OUT. THE. DOOR. That's how crazy they were making me, because what would that solve??

Thus...my winter break project....

Toy bin labels for every single basket and bin that holds toys. For some inspiration, I simply googled toy bin labels...and I found endless options. There were so many pretty, artsy choices, from chalkboard labels to these beautiful framed beauties from one of my organizational hero...I had some ideas of my own, too, and I am perfectly capable of making some cutesy artsy labels myself using my photoshop skills, but this time I decided to go with simple and easy and just use some free printables that I found here.  Although these weren't the prettiest ones that I found, what I loved is that they had the picture and the word, making it much easier for my kiddos to help with the organizing. Plus, she already had a label for just about every toy that you could think of. Endless organizing possibilities. Sigh.

Anyway...as you can see, I decided to "pretty them up" just a little bit by gluing them onto some patterned scrapbook paper. The ones for Cooper's room went on a blue background that has cute little quotes about boys. The labels for the girls' room were on pink paper with quotes about girls, and the labels for the gender-neutral stuff that lives in the playroom and the family room were on pale green.

After cutting and gluing them all, I took them to Kinkos (which I still call that even though I think its technically called FedEx now) and lamintated them all inside their nice, thick lamination sheets. Cost a total of about $8. I thought it would be way more than that. I will be using that machine more often. Love it.  

Next I punched holes with my tiny hole punch. A regular-sized hole would have looked janky. At least I think it would.  Then I used some baker's twine to hang them onto the ends of all the baskets. Honestly, why does stuff like this make me so giddy and warm inside? I'm weird. I know.

Here is a semi-after shot. I keep doing these DIY projects and only semi-finishing. I always forget the before shot...and then I got lazy and didn't even get a real after shot in all the rooms. Note to self. Do that. Trust me when I tell you that this little project (which took me maybe 4-5 total hours to accomplish if you include making the labels AND going through the entire house to organize the toys and put them in the appropriate bins) was life-changing. Seriously. Why did I not do this sooner. It has been almost two months and I can honestly say that the toys actually usually make it back to the bin or basket that they are supposed to live in. Thank goodness I used labels with pictures.