Organizing the Kid Dish Drawer

My intention is to take "before" and "after" photos of my organizing projects, but I must get into that habit. (Mike is horrified at the thought that I will be posting our messy habits online...but I figure it will be a satisfying exercise...maybe we DO have skeletons in our closet, our house!!) I forgot to take a before photo this time, so I took a "during" instead!

Anyone who has or has had children knows how easily one can accumulate kid cups, plates, etc., especially when so many restaurants give plastic cups with kid meals. We have designated a lower drawer for our kid plates and cups, so that the kids can retrieve them on their own. The drawer has not been cleaned out for over a year! (or two or three?) It was a jumble of junk.

After fishing everything out of the drawer, this was what was left--pens, cheerios, paper, soy sauce, Christmas tree ornaments, game pieces, feathers, magnets, and pieces of junk:



Here are all the lids I threw away (can't be recycled, alas)--most of them did not have matching cups to go with them!



Here are some of the cups and plates lined up (after many of them had been thrown away!).

And here, at last, is the organized drawer--much easier to find things!

My intention is to organize my house and life without spending tons of extra money. Therefore, our house will not look like House Beautiful or an IKEA catalog. We will invest in organizing systems when we need to, but I'm hoping to make a lot of progress simply by getting rid of stuff, so it's easier to organize what we have.