Life, Labeled

Building blocks. Stuffed animals. Crayons. Markers. Board games. Video games. There’s no end to the stuff kids accumulate. Clear storage bins have been the answer for many a harried mom.

But organizing things in tidy little tubs means nothing if you can't determine what's inside.

Label makers to identify what’s in what box is a good start.

Next level labeling? That’s where EXPO Markers come in.

With your super-sized handwriting (or for bonus parent points, have your child use theirs), identifying where the green blocks are (vs the lime green ones), is that much easier.

If the bins are super-clear, you can take a piece of masking tape and simply stick it to the inside to make the handwritten label easier to read.

And then your child grows out of one toy-du-jour, or you change your mind about what-goes-where, you can simply erase and move on to the next thing. That’s the beauty of it. Often, organizing is an exercise in trial-and-error.

And this labeling with EXPO markers also works for charitable items. You can separate items by bin on the fly, going the extra step of writing "ready to go" for carrying to the car. Or "need to sort" if you've got a mix of things that will end up in various places, like hand-me-downs for a nephew or niece. Items you might want to put out for a garage sale. Collections of toys from a series. That's how you clobber clutter!

Another practical–and memorable– idea is to have your child label the boxes themselves. What a great memory maker to take a photo of some items that they're giving away to the less fortunate.

Not to mention, a stack of containers with your child’s handwritten descriptions not only gives them some out-of-the-classroom practice at home, it’s just so darn cute. Take a picture at the start of every school year.

And don’t forget to keep another box handy– like tissues – as you watch them grow up.