Okay, I realize that this isn’t exactly a “priority” area of the home to be decluttering, nevertheless, if you have kids, then you probably have the same problem as I do of stacks of used up coloring books and buckets of broken crayons. In my home, cleaning them out was long overdue! And since I just cleared out my daughter’s collection of useless coloring paraphernalia, I figured I’d pass along some helpful little tips.

My first clue that her coloring books needed to be tossed, was when she would sit down to color and would flip through the whole book, then complain that there were no clean pages to draw on. Why in the world did I keep putting it back into the overstuffed coloring box? I finally got the hint, and went through all of her coloring books. The books that were mostly colored, I pulled out the pages that were still good. And the books that only had a few pages that had been colored on, I pulled out the used up pages. Here is my before and after:

These are the ones that I tossed, and the pages that I pulled from them that were still useful. Now I can actually close the plastic container that holds all of the coloring supplies! And Jada doesn’t have to flip through twenty books to find one clean page to color.

Next I took a look at all of her crayons filling their box. Just about all of them were broken, mostly into tiny little pieces that I know she wouldn’t pick up and color with. I decided they had to go. I set aside two sets of big, full sized crayons (two of each color), then I took the rest out. Now her little box is nice and tidy, and she doesn’t have to swim through waves of broken crayons just to find one big enough to color with. Here’s my before:

I did not get rid of the broken crayons though. No, I have another purpose in mind for them. I filled up three large yogurt containers with these crayons, and put them in the craft drawer. For Jada’s next birthday, I plan on her helping me make Crayon Muffins with these, to give to her guests as party favors. I think she will really enjoy making them, and I think it will make her feel good to give her guests something from herself.

Glad that little project is over! And now Jada can actually sit down and color without having to sort through a bunch of trash.

Maybe you’ve been inspired in some way to clean out the junk from your home as well. If so, I’d love to hear from you. Just write a post on your blog, and then link back here to tell us about it! Hope to have you join in! Minimizing our homes, one section at a time.

Tags : minimizing monday, monday meme, reusing broken crayons