It’s a natural part of motherhood, as your child grows and gets older, your house will slowly but surely be taken over by toys. Ask any mother of a child over two, and she will tell you the horror stories of having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night…or even the day time for that matter, and stepping on the Lego®’s or the Barbie® clothes that are strewn around the house.

Thankfully though, there are many creative and often inexpensive ways to store the toys around your house. Be creative and organized with your toys, and you can avoid the late night muffled screams of pain on your walk to the bathroom.

Bins: Toy bins can be inexpensive, and can flow with your room décor. You can pick them up at almost any store around your town. The downside to this way of storing small toys is that you never really know what it is in each bin, and they can tip over easily and create a huge mess to clean up.

Rubbermaid® boxes: Or something like them would also work great, especially if they are clear. That way you can see what’s inside the box as you organize your toys, and if they come with lids you can also stack them on a shelf, in the closet or a desk drawer.

Oatmeal containers: These work great for storing Matchbox® cars, crayons and other small objects. Find a picture of what you are going to put inside, and glue it on the outside for an easy way to remember what is inside each container.

The big peanut butter jars: These also work great for crayons and cars, and if the container is clear- and you take the label off of the jar- you will be able to see what’s inside easily.

Cloth string bags or Ziplock® bags: These bags work great for the very small items, such as marbles, Matchbox® cars, Barbie® shoes and Barbie® clothes. Just make sure that the bag will close easily and securely so that they do not spill their contents. You can then take the bags and stack them inside a desk drawer.

Sand buckets: If you hit the stores at the end of the summer season, you can usually pick these up cheaply. Just hang some pegs on the walls, and then hang the buckets on the pegs, making sure that they are low enough so that your child can easily reach them.

Tote bags: You can hang them on your child’s wall, with a picture of what’s inside on the outside. If you are storing Barbie® clothes in there, you can label one bag “dresses”, one bag “shoes”, etc.

Small bins, or shoe boxes: You can easily stack these on a shelf on in a closet. Again, just make sure that you label what’s in each box if it's not see through, so that you and your child knows what is in each box.

Somehow, it seems as though children have an abundant supply of stuffed animals.

Use your baby’s old bassinet: If you don’t need your old bassinet anymore, make it into a makeshift crib for the stuffed animals.

Hammock: You can buy a stuffed animal hammock almost anywhere, or you can make your own using a nice piece of cloth.

Toy chest: Put all of the stuffed animals in a toy box, or a larger box.

A three cart plastic drawer system: This will work for the smaller stuffed toys, such as Beanie Babies®.

Chain gang with clips: You clip the stuffed animals to the chain. This looks very cute and saves a lot of space.

Shelf: Line up the stuffed animals on a book shelf to display them.

Shelves: Display the toys on a book shelf, or you could even try contacting different companies for display racks they may have and don’t need anymore, and then paint the display rack to match your child’s room.

Toy chest or a big box: This works very well for the larger toys.

The closet: This works well for the larger toys that don’t fit in the toy chest, or on a shelf. You can also store them in the garage or the basement.