Stuffed Animals for Days

With baby number 4 on the way my goal has been to de-clutter the last 8 years of marriage and collecting. Yes, my husband was shocked when I told him. we normally go round and around on what to keep, toss, sell or give away.  I am a big collector of “stuff” that i want to keep for the kids or because we may need it in a year or two but that is for another post. So our current de-cluttering project: Stuffed Animals. These are my "drive me nuts because they are EVERYWHERE" items. Admit it every mom has that one toy type that they can't stand being on the floor.  

(This was taken 2 years ago, they are sitting on an oversize love seat)

Like every family out there we have collected stuffed animals. Since before our oldest was born he has collected stuffed animals from friends and family and each of our other kids have followed suit. Fast forward 7.5 years and our collection has grown just like our family. We tried everything from baskets to toy boxes to keep them picked up but they still took up space. I felt like we were ALWAYS cleaning up stuffed animals from the floor because someone had to find that one puppy or the green snake. We had seen the idea of buying a Stuffed Animal Bean Bag Chair and kind of tossed it to the side. After all, how would this be any different than a basket for each kiddo? they can still get into it and toss them on the floor and then what you have an empty bag floating around instead of a tipped basket. 

(Collection minus beds buddies and Mickey collection)

Boy were we proven wrong!

In an attempt to solve two problems 1) seating for the playroom and 2) a new stuffed animal solution,  we bought these ones off Amazon,  each kiddo has their own color and we even have one set aside for the baby. There are tons of options but we found these to be the best priced for our budget and with the best reviews for durability. 

Click Here

They are made out of a canvas material for long lasting durability, have a heavy duty zipper and a large opening to allow space to fit in those extremely large holiday animals they collect that are bigger than they are. The bags have a handle to help move them around and to help fluff them up when they get flat from sitting on. All the seams are reinforced and double stitched (this was important to me with 3 active boys. I didn't want to have to patch and resew the seams all the time 

When it was time to stuff our bags we sorted every ones stuffy collections into piles and then each kid went through their pile. They were instructed to sort them as 1.) Bed Buddies 2.) Give Away and 3.) Bean Bag Buddies.

Bed Buddies: Our kids are allowed to have 3-4 buddies on their beds at a time this keeps the mess to a minimum and allows them to be able to make their beds in the morning without difficulty. We also have it so we have to approve what is on their bed. If it was up to our oldest he would have his extra large teddy bear that is ½ his size on his top bunk bed. Not the safest idea with a kid who roles and moves a lot in his sleep.  Even funnier is our second oldest (pre-school) would have every talking, moving and noise maker on his bed if he could.

(Mickey and Friends collection stored in the baby's crib, 

and example why we have bed buddies)

Give Away: Our second pile is give away. This is those stuffed animals that get collected from giveaways, parties, carnivals, vending machines ect. This is also the pile were we put all our stuffed animals that no one really wanted or wanted to claim. We then donated all these to a shelter for families to come get help for free. We took a large garbage bag and a brown grocery bag worth of these and the shelter was delighted because most of them were like new condition and most the time they have to trash out what is brought to them. If you decide to go the same route make sure you check what the shelters policies are for stuffed animal donations. Most will only take smoke free, pet free like new condition. I've even seen a few that won't take beanie babies, and animals without tags.

Bean Bag Buddies: Everything that was left from each person’s pile was then placed in their bean bag. I didn't count how many stuffed animals made it into each kids bag because they each vary with sizes but the older 2 boys each have a full baskets worth (see the tall green and black basket pictured at the beginning of the post). Our youngest son has all his stuffed animals plus out Mickey and friends collection from the crib, His bag is about half to three quarters full so we stuffed a blanket in it to fluff it up.  

The end result created 3 bean bags for our boys to have in their playroom to sit on when they read, play or watch a movie. They are soft and when the kids want to have a specific friend out they can unzip, dig through, find and re-zip! So easy our 2 year old has been able to swap his own friends out with minimal help. We have even caught Daddy laying on them for a quick nap. 

  

All zipped up and ready