Ok, I hesitated to post this here, because it is SO not NFL- but on the other hand, it is AP in that it's purpose is to help kids learn to be organized and take care of their stuff, sooo...
You know those little plastic characters your kids likely have (if you are too farking poor to buy hand-carved wooden HearthSong stuff)?
Little animals, *cough army men cough*, etc. Kinda junky, but my kids have a lot of open-ended playtime with them (and hey, the little animals are from when I was a kid, so at least they're recycled 
).
But storage and play is a bitch, right? You step on them, curse at them, there are boxes & bins & storage containers, but there are cons to all of them. The kids like to take advantage of their small size & mobility & take them around to play- dragging around a bin is not a lot of fun (nor being banished to a 'playroom', if you are so fortunate to have one).
What my kids wanted was to be able to drag them around & play with them outside in the sandbox, the dirt, but I thought having them get lost in the sand, & the dirt was depressing- mowing their heads off & losing an eye, not being ever able to assemble them in one place ever again.
But what to do? Plastic bags: Get slimy & full of water. Bins & boxes: wet & full of water, sand, unable to bring them back in. Storage net (I'm getting closer) UV exposure & wetness making them degrade, dirt, wetness. Knitting a drawstring bag? But everything I thought of for constructing was just going to get soggy & sandy & ROT. (I'm thinking, 'organic hemp? Oh, if I could only make it from organic hemp so I could post it at MDC')
The epiphany! That plastic cord crap they make kids make knotted lanyards out of at camp! (That Deb made in Napoleon Dynamite!) Impossible to work with needles... but a cinch with the knitting loom!
So, they can drag it around in the yard, & just hose the whole pile off when they want to bring the horribly unnatural plastic figurines back in, in their garish hideous petroleum product off-gassing knitted tote sack!
When I finish I'll take a pic, if anyone is interested. Right now in my perfect world it is handcarved wooden characters (or at least, nice Ritter plastic ones) in an organic hemp tote, but since that isn't happening for me right now, I just wanted to share what looks to be a pretty decent solution to hauling around the indoor/outdoor crap that my kids genuinely like & would like to keep more-or-less together.
You know those little plastic characters your kids likely have (if you are too farking poor to buy hand-carved wooden HearthSong stuff)?
Little animals, *cough army men cough*, etc. Kinda junky, but my kids have a lot of open-ended playtime with them (and hey, the little animals are from when I was a kid, so at least they're recycled ).But storage and play is a bitch, right? You step on them, curse at them, there are boxes & bins & storage containers, but there are cons to all of them. The kids like to take advantage of their small size & mobility & take them around to play- dragging around a bin is not a lot of fun (nor being banished to a 'playroom', if you are so fortunate to have one).
What my kids wanted was to be able to drag them around & play with them outside in the sandbox, the dirt, but I thought having them get lost in the sand, & the dirt was depressing- mowing their heads off & losing an eye, not being ever able to assemble them in one place ever again.
But what to do? Plastic bags: Get slimy & full of water. Bins & boxes: wet & full of water, sand, unable to bring them back in. Storage net (I'm getting closer) UV exposure & wetness making them degrade, dirt, wetness. Knitting a drawstring bag? But everything I thought of for constructing was just going to get soggy & sandy & ROT. (I'm thinking, 'organic hemp? Oh, if I could only make it from organic hemp so I could post it at MDC'
)The epiphany! That plastic cord crap they make kids make knotted lanyards out of at camp! (That Deb made in Napoleon Dynamite!) Impossible to work with needles... but a cinch with the knitting loom!
So, they can drag it around in the yard, & just hose the whole pile off when they want to bring the horribly unnatural plastic figurines back in, in their garish hideous petroleum product off-gassing knitted tote sack!
When I finish I'll take a pic, if anyone is interested. Right now in my perfect world it is handcarved wooden characters (or at least, nice Ritter plastic ones) in an organic hemp tote, but since that isn't happening for me right now, I just wanted to share what looks to be a pretty decent solution to hauling around the indoor/outdoor crap that my kids genuinely like & would like to keep more-or-less together.
: 
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