Yesterday I went to my local library, the get some more children's books, ahem, cough, OK, actually some books about sewing. In amongst the range of books on quilting, knitting and crochet there were a large number of books ostensibly titled 'how to make soft toys'. WHAT! These books must be banned, or at least put them on a shelf too high for well meaning old ladies to reach.
Soft toys are becoming the bane of my life. Last audit, we were reaching 120 of the little blighters. Now, as most children pick one or two and ignore the rest, the other 118 are not needed. They sit around collecting dust, looking rapidly more dated as each day goes by and serve no real purpose to anyone. You can't easily give them away, they don't easily catch fire these days and they have a capacity to fill space like nothing else on this planet. Except for grass in flowerbeds. I did offload some on Freecycle to someone whose school wanted them for the tombola. A victory against the powers of soft toy evil. That's a tombola I would avoid!
Anyhow, a list of things to do with soft toys;
- Accidentally drop them whilst out and about, rather like the old sand in the pocket trick.
- Repackage them as Christmas/Birthday presents. If anyone does this to me, I'll know.
- Fill up those plastic charity bags which keep on coming through the door at a rate which is quicker than I can actually go and buy something to put in them . Serves them right for adding to the plastic waste mountain.
- Leave them at well meaning old ladies houses' oh, dear, yes, I'll come and collect it. When he is 12'.
- Butcher them to use the material for other more worthy items, applique on t-shirts perhaps
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12 comments:
Fill an extra bag for your friendly local bin man to carry. If they incentivise parking wardens with tickets, don't they do the same with bin men.
I hate cuddly toys too - luckily the boy's not too big on them so we've managed to get away with having very few in the house. I hope the next one learns from its big brother.
Couldn't agree more, HATE them with a vengeance!! Thanks for the list, some good ideas there.
Will the textile recycling people take them ?
I keep stashing a few in the bags we send to the charity shop but we still seem to accumulate them - why do people think I want extra soft toys in the house e.g. Christmas rabbits and so on
We have the piles of soft toys and not so soft ones. Kai being the first got a lot of teddies etc, but we all learnt not to bother by the time Alana came along so the number she's got is a lot smaller. Having a three yr old and a one yr old I have held on to the older ones toys for the younger. Now we have a house full of toys. Luckily Alana is showing an interest in trains like her brother. She tends to get new girlier clothes and toys, mainly because all the toys we've got are for boy or neutral.
Our job for the next few days is to go through all the toys gutting out the stuff we don't or can be sold at carboot sales. But I do like the idea about filling the charity sacks. I tend to use them as rubbish bags.
Hmm - I know the feeling. How about boiling a few cuddly bunny wabbits in a pan on the oven a la Basic Instinct?! Too cruel perhaps? Otherwise, there's always bonfire night coming up. Teddy for the Guy?
I'm hoping that BabyNo2 is a HUGE fan of all cuddlies and they can be automatically rehoused with a more appreciative audience - I can but hope ;o)
BTW any relative that buys BabyNo2 a cuddly is in danger of being shot - you have been warned ;o)
Wait till they get older and you get toys with hundreds of little bits everywhere. We used to have a light hearted rule with our family - 'you can buy the boys anything you like for christmas so long as it is only has one part ' It was good rule too.
I am dreading the influx of cuddly toys when Eleanor is born. We have way too many and that's with a whole bin bag of them sitting downstairs in the basement. And it's always the favourite one that gets lost, while all the others seem to multiply. Arghh!
Award for you at mine x
This post made me laugh :o) one of those pre kids things I blithely stated was oh & we WONT be having mountains of soft toys no no no....
Fast forward to the future.. & the smalls have a veritable animal mountain.One thing I dont mind is that they are all kinds of animals,they have very few actual teddy bears but we have snakes,pigs,cats,monkeys,giraffes,whales,
the list goes on....
We live in the sticks & I miss those charity bin bags so much,when I do a cull I have to mmediately take them out to the car & try to hide them in the boot until we are in a town with an oxfam bin in a car park somewhere,of course then there is always the change fluffy bunny will have a pesky ear poking out of the tied bag.....!!
I found your blog via MrsCs
GTM :o)
p.s. there's an award for you over at mine !
Stick a layer of them in the loft & you'll be insulating the house at the same time! You can strategically bring them back down depending on who is visiting.
I like your 'accidentally' dropping them method :)
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