House Tour: Children's Rooms: What to do with all those plastic-y, primary-color toys?

In our home, we don't keep too many toys in the childrens' bedrooms.

Well...... that is sorta true.

starting over:
In my ideal home, we don't keep too many toys in the childrens' bedrooms.
{at least, not the large plastic-y kind.}

In my ideal home, I will have a playroom where I can keep the door shut!
but, since our future "playroom" currently looks like this:
I know. I know. Wallboard and such for the playroom IS in the 5 year plan, I promise (as opposed to the 20 year plan... which encompasses the majority of the rest of our "life-sentence" blessing of a home).

I digress.

Soooooo, for now, we have a combination playroom/nursery. Fascinating, isn't it? This combo works for now, since both of my guys nap at the same time - hence, play at the same time.I will have to share the room in a future post, since for now, this post is about:
How to Deal with all those plastic Toys and toys with a bizzillion pieces??

Well, we picked the nursery room to house the toys because it happens to be full of closets.

Which brings me to point #1:
1. USE CLOSETS {insert angelic singing here}
........ ah. one of my favorite words : )

The best form of a closet for toys is an actual playroom. i.e. A large room with a door that is basically a huge, toy-eating, closet.

The next best form of a closet for toys, is, well: closets.
Here is The Joy of Closets in our playroom/nursery:
And behind most of those closet doors we have Junk Galore!!!!!
AND *gasp*, much of it is unorganized. Yes. it is true.
As exemplified here:
And shoved in here:

And rolled in here:2. USE BASKETS, of course.

Baskets really do work well for both Mommy and kids.

• They are easy for your kids to help with clean up time.
• They are a low-stress way of keeping it all together
• They are cheap and available everywhere, in all types of styles and colors
• They are ingenious for Hiding The Uglies. A MUST with plastic-y toys.

Here is a basket hiding behind a chair in our playroom:

Yes. The baskets in Caleb's room do hide a few, choice, plastic-y things:

And I just had to include the basket of plastic-y toys in our bathroom that I keep tucked behind the tub:

Can't see it? Can you????? Ah. Hiding the Uglies is so satisfying!:

And point #3, 3. EDIT, EDIT, EDIT

On a regular basis, I DUMP all of the toys out of a closet or basket, and I sort them into piles. And then, I begin to edit. Here is my method:

1. When my kids are NOT LOOKING, I remove the giveaway pile. This is stuff that my kids don't play with hardly at all. I give it away.

2. When my kids ARE looking, we set aside some toys that we are going to give to charity. I let my kids pick these. Then, we give it away.

Editing is SO important.

It is important for your kids to learn how to part with STUFF. It is only stuff after all. Plus, if toy areas are overflowing, I believe it is too overwhelming for kids' imaginations.

So EDIT AWAY!

So, what do you do with all of your plastic-y, primary explosion of toys??????????