I'm drowning in my kids clutter.

[spidermama]

I try to keep a tidy house but my kids are prolific clutter machines.

They write and illustrate a couple of books per day and draw and paint piles pictures.

I have a strong urge to bin the lot, every evening, but they get upset when I do.

What's your strategy?

Bin it when they're not looking

Oh QE! I was going to write exactly the same post as you!

yep bin it all

And when the large, moist eyes blink up at you and utter, in a broken tones, 'Mummy, What happened to the present I drew for you with the magic door handle?'

Get them to paint stuff for grandparents and post it!

I just answer irritably, "I don't know. It must be lost in all this clutter. If you want to keep something, why don't you look after it more?"

Now you can see what kind of mother I am.

Hahahaha LM. I'll do that. If they cry, I'll say Lonleymum said I could.

Send them to me and I'll give them short shrift, as my mother used to say. (Emotionally deprived bchildhood now emerging).

I let drawings, collages and other stuff that my kids think is utterly wonderful pile up for a couple of weeks. One day I flip, wait til they're at school, then scoop up the whole lot of crap and chuck it in the bin. Right at the bottom, mind, so they don't spot it when they come in from school and turf it out again.

I hate paintings, cuttings out, anything that makes mess. I keep looking longingly at all the rubbish toys with tiny little annoying pieces accumulated in their rooms and I'm just itching, itching I say, to bin the whole bloody lot.

Oooh you and me both QE! I have day dreams about the time to come when I can thrown out each bit of their clutter! You know, 8 more years until ds3 grows out of Lego, but only a few more months before I can chuck out his noisome Teletubbies!

You and me both QE. I dream about getting a skip and mucking out the whole darn lot.

Every now and then i announce: "I'm having a big clean up, anything on the floor will go in the bin."

And it does.

Mwahahahahahahaahahahahah.

If they're sad, they should have put it away! [ruthless icon]

someone else posted about this and suggested taking a photo of each piece of 'art' and putting them all in a scrapbook - takes up much less room! or how about sticking all their pieces up on the walls in their bedroom?
Or maybe make a big pin board with a frame around it, somewhere which you rotate this week's masterpiece - and insist that it has to rotate each time there is new work.

I buy boxes to neatly store and stack toys. Everything still ends up on the floor. I am never buying rubbishy, cheap toys for Christmas ever again.

I promised I would only have a quick look on MN and I seem to have become glued to the chair.

I reckon my ds plays with about 20% of his toys (that classic 80/20 rule again!!) I am serioulsy thinking of having a major de-clutter and bunging a load of stuff in loft/cellar and keeping his toys to one single toy box. At the moment he has toys in his room, in our room, the living room and the kitchen, oh and the bathroom. It's ridiculous.

DH - do it!

I've always found they never notice. They notice them again when they reappear, but they don't really notice when they're gone.

My loft is bulging with clutter and I can't even remember what it is. I'm seriously tempted to get rid of the lot without even opening boxes. (Best dig out my wedding dress first).
I have a theory that my cluttered loft is giving me headaches.

goddamn it - that's my task for today! Removing toys...fantastic....demonic cackle!!!!!

i am glad to see ther are oher 'cullers' out there. There was a similar thread about a year ago and i suggested chucking it all out and was flamed for my suggestion.
I am all for getting rid of it. I keep some things- and dd has a scrap book for stuff she can't live without.Most of it gets filed in the BIN!!!!!!!!!!