Simple Things Sunday: Villains vs...Villains?

Mr. No is very particular about his toys.  He is currently into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, both the show and the toys. While he always roots for the good guys to win, he only wants the villain toys.  He says "they looks cooler and the bad guys fight other bad guys, anyway".  So this Sunday is both about enjoying the silly villain fights in the yard and enjoying the simple little quirks that Mr. No...just completely Mr. No.

suddenly attacking me!

Those are antennae in his face not weapons.

Flashback Friday: Little Artist

Mr. No has always loved art!  Here's 15 month old Mr. No getting very serious about painting a picture for H's birthday.  We actually still have this masterpiece hanging on the wall.

DIY Simple Photo Labels

I realized when I finished yesterday's post that I didn't include instructions on how to make the incredibly simple and helpful photo labels.  The photo labels are a must have for any kid's room. It make clean up a breeze...even for H!

These do take a little time but are very simple and cost almost nothing. You definitely want a white background.  Nothing distracting so that the figures are easily recognized on your boxes or drawers.  I used the white lids from the totes we used to use for the toys and propped one up with the radio on the desk.  I set it up by and sunny window so I wouldn't have any brightness from the flash in the photo.  Here you can see how simple it is to set up the 2 lids (or white poster board or cardstock).

Mr. No loved helping by picking out which of the toys would go on the label and by setting them up on the lids.   This is what one of our labels looks like with just a little adjusting:

All I did was crop the photos to just show the toys and printed them out on cardstock.  It's durable and cheap.  If you have a laminating machine then you could just use that but I don't.  So I just used some thick clear packing tape on each side, cut it to look uniform and attached it to the fabric bin with double sided tape.

our bins are HUGE, so most bins have more than 1 type of toy in them

A little time consuming but can easily be done while watching a movie or t.v. show. Everyone who sees them, loves them, and even the smallest child can put their own toys away.  Mr. No loves that his favorites are showcased on the outside of the bins!

Tiny Playroom Redo

Mr. No has a ridiculous amount of toys and super tiny playroom.  Seriously.  A good portion are one that we had from when we were younger...Fisher Price Castles and Wild West play sets, He-man and Voltron figures, legos and things like that.  He also has a ton of new toys but the problem is that he loves tiny toys.  Yeah, it's great that he can a new toy more often because most coast around $2-3 but you end up with so many and they end up everywhere.  We had everything in totes with lids stacked in bookshelves.  Not a good idea.  They weren't all the same totes so covers were tossed around, they needed to be stacked and basically if I didn't clean up nothing fit in place. So this year we decided to hit ikea for a playroom redo.

I found exactly what we needed.  Expedit shelving units with a large desk that attached were bought to replace almost all the bookshelves and we found a matching Lack side table to be turned into a Lego table.  We also found some awesome large fabric bins on clearance that were made to fit into the shelving unit. I also made H search around for the perfect (but inexpensive) bin rack to hold and sort all of Mr. No's Legos. Then I made a some curtains, photo labels for the bins and a collage of animal photos for the wall.  After a few days work, it turned from disaster into a usable room with more space to play.  We can't paint or replace the carpet so they had to stay the same.

here is the before, mess and all, please note all of the randomly stacked bins and tiny play table covered in...I'm not sure what:

Here's the after:

I know the road rug does not match but we have yet to find something to replace it.  Mr. No insisted on this Pink Panther fabric for me to make into curtains. So we went with the black shelving and desk to match it. I absolutely love the bins though!  They are incredibly huge!  Even bigger than they look!

See the totes (with word labels) and toys just piled everywhere and the one bookshelf we actually kept.  Yeah, that's how it looked most of the time...

Not a great photo but the picture labels were a must have!  Just click the link to see how easy they were to make. Mr. No can't read yet and H has no idea what most of Mr. No's toys are called so everything was getting mixed up.  Now it's super easy for Mr. No (and H) to clean up the playroom in minutes.  Look for your toy's label, pull out the bin, toss in and toss back into shelf.  And, miraculously, they work!  The room stays fairly clean or can be cleaned in under 10 minutes!

He went from tiny table to huge desk with storage underneath that is great for playing and for homework.  Mr. No is only in Kindergarten but gets homework every night.

This corner I really don't have a before photo of.  It's had so many different things toss in it over the past year...toy boxes, shelves, night stand turned play cabinet.  It went from toss whatever doesn't fit anywhere else corner to the Lego corner.

Lego table made from ikea Lack table. The idea came from Ikea  Hackers and you can see how simple it is to make in this post  as well as a link to the original idea. Stool is from ikea as well and I threw together the little cushion to make it more comfy. Animal collage made from all my animal photos from all our adventures.  I made collages just like these for my bedroom so you can see how I made them here.  They are really simple to make.

Well, that's how I turned a tiny little space into a usable, easily cleaned playroom with a little craftiness and a little help from ikea.


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Simple Things Sunday: Clementine Creatures

Some times it's all about the simple things you can do for your kids just to make their day a little brighter.  Especially when they're in school all day long, trying so hard to do a good job.  So I've tried every day to take an extra a minute or three to add a little something extra to his lunch box just to make him smile.  Either I use a cookie cutter to give him a fun shape, attached mini pickle halves to roll ups to make snail or make creatures out of his clementines.  I saw the snail idea all over the internet and the turtle I came up with spur of the moment.  Nice part is that I could use any old marker since he doesn't eat the skin anyway.

The snail was a surprise and he refused to eat it at school.  He said it was too cute to eat and insisted that I had to get a picture first.

The turtle I took a picture of beforehand and informed him of that so he would eat his lunch.

They aren't the most perfect little things but he loves when they show up in his lunchbox.  It serves as a reminder to me that I should make more of an effort to do little things every day for him.  An extra story at bedtime, extra cuddle time, fun shapes at lunch, stop what I'm doing and really listen even when there are 15 things to get done.  We forget sometimes that kids don't need grand gestures to show that they are loved, respected, appreciated.  They just need little moments here and there and simple little surprises to brighten their day.