Game Organization

I know some of you are curious about how we got rid of 18 game boxes during our re-org here at the little green house. Years ago when I was a new mom with a new house, I learned about a book called, Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece Schofield. The local news was doing a regular feature of her ideas at the time.

So, of course I bought the book. Because at that point, I was a brand new stay-at-home mom who took everything from her science classroom and brought it home. Plus, there was E the new infant and all his accouterments. And as you all now know, I was also carrying various a sundry items such as 80s movie posters and everything from our condo fire that was plopped back into our lap even though the insurance company (which shall remain nameless) supposedly now owned but never came to claim. In other words, I had stuff to organize.

One of her grand ideas was to ditch the game boxes for your board games. Mrs. Schofield's original idea called for a mechanic's tool chest of drawers- you know the red ones with the million plastic drawers to pull out? You were to empty all your game pieces into the drawers and label them and put the whole thing up on a shelf. Toward the wall. So, little fingers could not easily pull open drawers. Though I know a few who could pull the whole thing down! Once you emptied the box and stored the pieces, then you put the boards behind the sofa or another flat, stealth hiding place.

Did you know that these days many game boards don't just fold in half like in the old days? Now you have fancy folding game boards that fold up a couple of times making them bulkier and less likely to sit nicely behind furniture keeping cover. Also, do you have any idea how much those mechanic drawer sets cost? I need to save that money for the actual need for a mechanic.

So, I modified the idea. I ditched the game boxes and then put the pieces in zippy bags. Actually, E11 did this part. He labeled them too. We had a low, flat box formerly for wooden puzzles that I emptied completely and that's where we put the game boards.

We had a three drawer set that I hadn't used in a long time which I plucked out of the craft corner and restored to good use.

So, for this idea I was out some zippy bags but there was no extra cost and I used up two containers formerly used for something else.

Awesome.

Now I hope you can see the pictures. Because I just discovered something new and wonderful in Picasa. Can you tell what it is? If not, then just click for a bigger image.

Also, in full disclosure, this is only a fraction of the games we own. and some games really aren't up for his method like Carcasonne and Catan. But, it really saves us precious space just the same.

Oh and I almost forgot! As you can see in the picture, I get to pull out my label maker to relabel some drawers. Happy Sigh...