I have a dirty little secret. I always swore I would not let my children get into trendy toys that they keep needing to buy more of. However, I have succumbed to many of those “collectibles” that are such a waste of money….and I actually love them!
Build A Bears would be one of these things. I love them because my kids spend hours dressing their animals and come up with the most imaginative play to go with the super cute outfits and accessories. Second reason I love them? For the most part my children have earned their own money to buy the millions of animals, outfits, and accessories they have! That, I absolutely LOVE! The third reason I love them is because all of my kids collect them, and they play together with them, sharing everything they have!
However, we have accumulated quite a bit of the “stuff”. I have a cabinet just for Build A Bear stuff, but it was not working. So, I came up with the brilliant idea (yes that is me patting myself on my own back!) of putting up hooks on the wall next to the cabinet, to display all the cute outfits. However, I only had a few of the build a bear hangers and was not going to spend a dime to organize this area.
So I made my own hangers out out of leftover foam core board that I had from the playroom makeover.
I used the Build A Bear hanger as a guide, but I did not want the build a bear head on the hanger, so I omitted that.
In the two above pictures you can see that I traced the bottom part of the hanger, then I slid the hanger down and just traced the hook part right onto the bottom part (which is how I cut the bear head part of the hanger out of my hangers).
The notch in the hanger is a great idea because almost every build a bear outfit my kids had have loops in the pants that are made for hanging the pants on the same hanger with the top! I LOVE that. The loops are even pretty long so that the pants will hang down underneath the top. Pretty ingenious if you ask me! 
How have you organized these collections? What collections have you allowed your kids to have? Which collections do you secretly love?
My children collect Build A Bears, Bobbleheads (Littlest Pet Shop), Bakugon, and Webkinz. But you know what? They collected all of these things for years. That makes them feel so much more worth it to me, as they were not just a trend for this moment only to be thrown away when the next trendy toy came along!
Rebecca
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3 comments:
I know exactly where you are coming from in this post, I used to feel uneasy about 'plasticy/trendy' toys, but yes - mine love them too! My daughter has barbies, sylvanian families, my little ponies, jungle in my pocket. Both kids have collected gogo's crazy bones. My son has a collection of daleks (from doctor who). And both my kids have HUGE cuddly toy collections and always want more! They do play with them all the time though!
It's great to hear that your kids have been dedicated to their collections for years! I appreciate the value of long-lasting interests. I allowed my kids to have virtuoso Bear and remote cars. Those are great choices for collections. Keeping them organized in their own spaces could be helpful to maintain and enjoy them easily!
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