Oh, DVDs and CDs! They have been a headache of mine for years. We had an entire media cabinet filled with them. Two drawers in my oldest son's room, and half a drawer in my youngest son's room, all jammed packed with them. We could never find the DVD or CD we wanted, and when my kids would go searching for what they wanted, a lot of times, the DVDs and CDs would end up being dumped out on the floor. Our system was NOT working for us and something had to change!
When I started thinking about organizing this space, I knew I wanted:
A. A system where my kids could not dump the DVDs and CDs out on the floor.
B. A system where I could put our entire collection together in one location.
C. Something big enough that our collection would have room to grow.
I have been thinking about this for months-no really, I have haha! Every time I have been in a store the past few months, I would go down the media aisle to see what my options were. In the end, I decided to go with these awesome Memorex Travel Cases that I got from Target! I could not be more happy!
 |
| That's right- it says 256 ct! I bought two of these babies. One for our DVDs and one for our CDs! |
 |
| I also bought two of the 128 ct. One for the kids DVDs and one for their CDs! |
 |
| The first thing I did, was sit on the floor and lay out the cases in front of me like this... |
 |
| Wow! Then, I just started filling up the four cases and throwing the empty DVD and CD cases to the side. This actually went faster than I thought it would! |
 |
| What a mess! Looking at this, I wonder why I ever thought it would be a good idea to keep all of these cases! |
 |
| In the end, I had 7 trash bags full! 6 full of the plastic cases and 1 full of paper trash! |
 |
| Let's take a look in my media cabinet now... |
 |
| Look at all that extra room in my media cabinet! Plus, we have plenty of room in our cases to grow our collection! I did not take a picture of it, but I also added labels to each case so we would know which case is which. |
 |
| My son also has two empty drawers in his room now! Yippee! |
What did I do with all those empty cases, you ask??? I posted on Facebook asking if anyone wanted them. A photographer friend responded, and she is picking up all 6 trash bags today to reuse the cases! It's a win-win! If you don't have anyone to pass them along to, the plastic cases are also recyclable!
There you have it! A smart and simple way to organize your media!
Would love to hear from you! How do you store your family's media?
Great job Teresa! I've been trying to figure out a better system for ours too. Just curious if anyone misses having the paper liners to look at? I'm not sure I am prepared to get rid of all of them yet.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Hilda! There was one paper liner that I did want to keep because I often would refer back to it for the lyrics. I just placed it in the plastic sleeve with the CD in my new case. All the other paper liners, I did toss, because honestly, I never looked at them. All of our DVD's and CD's either have pictures on them, or are clearly marked, so I did not personally see a need to keep all the paper clutter. Hope that helps!
DeleteTeresa
Hello,
DeleteI did this with our DVD collection about 4 years ago. I also filled 1 1/2 of the 256 collection notebooks. I labeled each movie, so it is returned and I can tell if something is missing. I( and my family) do not miss the cases and information on them at all.
Anonymous,
DeleteI love that idea about labeling each movie in your case so that you know if something is missing! I agree totally, we have not missed the cases or paper liners one bit, and we are loving all the extra space we have now in place of them! =)
Those cases are amazing for organizing DVD's! My hubby downright refuses to take the DVD's out of their cases so that I can store them somewhere else. I even told him that doing so would actually allow our collection to expand, as we'd have more room. No dice! However, I do have one that I keep all my "Chick Flicks" in.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I am a fellow organizing-a-holic, so I love coming across blogs like yours. Of to check it out!
www.domesticblissdiaries.com
Alana, Thank you! I really do love my new cases and haven't missed the cases one bit!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! This is EXACTLY what I did and I adore it!!! I have one filled with our movies and one for the kids. I kept a few movies with cases, such as our James Bond set, but almost everything else was put in these exact cases. Looks great! I held onto the cases that were really bright red and green ones for when I loan out a dvd. I just wrote our family name across it and it protects it for the trip.
ReplyDeleteDebt Free Mommy,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this system! That is so funny we organized our DVDs and CDs the exact same way- great minds think alike haha!!
Teresa
wow! i gotta do this with our dvds and cds!! it will definitely save a lot of space!!!
ReplyDeletegood job on this one!
Smart Momma,
ReplyDeleteThank you! It really is a huge space saver!! :)
Xo,
Teresa
It's Party Time over at Debt Free Mommy Blog and you are invited! Please come link up anything related to making your space better at http://debtfreemommyblog.blogspot.com/ and mark your calendars for every Making Space Mondays linky party. The fun begins at 9:00 pm tonight. Hope to see you there!
ReplyDeleteMaybe someday I'll actually get around to posting those pics, lol. It just kinda passed me by and I started posting on other stuff.
I will definitely be linking up to the party! Thank you!!!
DeleteTeresa
We did this along time ago even with our WII and PlayStation games in till my hubby lost all our games (left them on top of the car when we were moving) And we have 5 of the big ones full 2 med ones full and then about 4 of the lil ones full I think we have way to many but i cant convince H to get rid of any!! but this helps alot think how much room all them cases would take in the process of moving we found 6 totes full of them cases!! i gave most to a friend who does crafts and keep some for my self to use to make xmas gifts!!
ReplyDeleteShanya,
DeleteIt definitely is a huge spacesaver and timesaver! I wish I would have done it a long time ago like you! :)
Teresa