Operation Declutter: Day 2 - The Little Girls Room

Today I continued in the little girls room. It took a lot longer than I was expecting. My mission today was to tackle the doll corner, play table and the book/toy shelf and stuffed animal hammock. We actually got rid of about half the stuffed animals last week, but I decided to toss more today. The kids really don't play with them and they get full of dust. 

To read previous posts about "Operation Declutter" click here.

Donations are all going to our church's Christmas in July Rummage Sale. All proceeds are going to the missionaries that our church supports.

Lets begin shall we?

Day 2: THE LITTLE GIRLS' ROOM - Doll Corner, Toy Hammock, Play Table and Toy/Book Shelf

The walls in their room are a little messed up. Plenty of holes for my husband to patch, and the sweet little angels who live there decided to rip down most of the cute boarder that used to separate the two wall colors. Grr.

First off is the doll corner. This is where the baby dolls are supposed to go. There is a bunk bed for them along with two highchairs. Do you see any dolls there? I sure don't. But, there is a life jacket just in case you're drowning.

BEFORE: Doll Corner

AFTER: Doll Corner

I cleaned up the mess, and found all the dolls. They have a nice little quiver of babies. For those who knew me when I was a small child, you will notice Sarah there in the corner. Yes, I still have her.

Say Hi to Sarah!

I printed two cute little vintage girl photos and put them in a frame  to decorate the area. Too cute!

Next we move on to the small kids table. It was acting as a place for tons of colored on papers, a paper lion puppet from last weeks Sunday School lesson about Daniel and the Lions Den, crayons, kite string, and a some games.

BEFORE: Kids table

Most of the things were recycling or trash. After, I put a cute little floral table cloth there. It's so pretty!

AFTER: Kids table

Our next adventure was to the toy/book shelf. This is a place that all sorts of things get shoved or set, because we don't have a toy box. I don't care for toy boxes, they make things are unorganized and messy. Shh, I know, I know. Anyway, I prefer several smaller boxes where things are categorized and sorted.

BEFORE: Bottom of toy shelf and floor

Yesterday, I gave the dress-up stuff a new box, but today I switched it again. I had a Ziploc storage bag in another closet and put the dress-up stuff there and rounded up the 3 different containers of doll clothes and put those in the pink box. A lot of the toys that were on the toy shelf were sorted and found a home on the closet shelves.

AFTER: Bottom of toy shelf

The top part of the shelf was home to story books, color books and our plethora of Toy Story toys. The little girls were big Toy Story fans for a while. They still play it, just not as obsessively. So, this area of the shelf really doesn't need to be dedicated to 6 Woody Dolls and all his pals. Most of the story books stayed, I did put a few in the donation box. Books are plentiful in this house....sometimes, too plentiful. The top shelf,  I laugh, HAHA had 28 coloring books. Why? I don't know. How did we get that many? Ummmm, don't know that either. But, I know for a fact I keep straightening them and leaving them there. I flipped through them to see if any were full and could be recycled. And....

Wait for it.........

26 were full. YES 26 out of 28.

BEFORE: Top of book shelf

Coloring books

The home to 26 used up coloring books is now home to the left over stuffed animals. There must have been at least 100 stuffed animals. I wish I had a picture of the toy hammock before I thinned it out last week. Dern it.

AFTER: Top of book shelf

As I mentioned before, the stuffed animals were all hanging in a toy hammock in the corner.

BEFORE: Toy hammock corner

And....more holes for my husband to patch.

AFTER: Toy hammock corner

Now we move on to some interesting finds and funny stuff. I had to reach into the 3rd world country of clutter: Under the Toy Shelf, to pull out all that was shoved there. Guess what I found among the little ponies, cows and other little toys? Exactly what you would expect to find in a 3rd world country....

Under the shelf

Yes, you guessed it....... A Little Missionary.

After clean up he moved to a spot on the shelf for his deputation.

Laugh, will you?

 .....Come on, it was funny......

I also discoverd some long lost pirates booty.

Okay, so now we move on to the serious stuff. I don't allow the girls to have Barbie, yet somehow she ALWAYS manages to get in somehow. She's tricky, and naked, always naked. Doesn't the girl own clothes? I FOUND BARBIES. 3 of them actually, and they were ALL NAKED!! (I flipped them over for modesty's sake)

#1

#2 & #3

I also found some Devil Dolls. That is not what they are actually called. Really, they are Disney Princess Polly Pocket type dolls. But I call them Devil Dolls. Here's why: I got these for the little girls at Christmas time  because they were small and cute and they kept asking for them. They had 6 of them. From the second they opened these dolls, they fought. I don't mean little arguments, I mean fight! They were screaming, yelling, hitting, biting, you name it. All over these dolls. One of them even ripped the head off of one so the other couldn't play with it. These little tiny dolls brought out the worst behavior I have ever seen in my little girls. At first we took them away whenever they fought, but soon discovered they needed to be thrown away. They were Devil Dolls. Anyway, I found 2 of them, one naked (surprise, surprise). They were thrown away quickly.

Hiding naked Devil Doll..oy vey

Devil Doll #1

Devil Doll #2 & 2 dresses

Devil Doll and naked Barbies, all in the trash.

The Toy Story toys were all moved to a plastic container with a lid and put on the closet shelves.

Because every kid needs all the characters from Toy Story. Right?

New Box

A few things were added to the closet shelves, but they still look smashing. Don't they?

Wrap up..

Fully completed shelf

Table and Doll Corner

I even hung up the girls Bow Holders that I made for them last month.

Donation Pile

Recycle and trash pile

I am now 2/3rds of the way through the little girls room. Tomorrow I hope to finish it. I will be going under the beds. Yikes!

Weight of today's clutter was 33.5 pounds. Bringing the total so far to 62.1 pounds. AWESOME!! And, both of the little girls said "Thank you!" and gave me a big hug.

Thank you God for giving me the strength to get rid of this stuff that is cluttering our lives.