This is a tip I learned from the parents of Mikey’s best friend, Nate. If you have a child who loves Beyblades, you know they go everywhere. Little parts and pieces as far as the eye can see, or can’t see if it’s the middle of the night and your 13 year old beagle is convinced he can take on the skunk in your backyard. You also know that Beyblade cases–sorry, Beylockers–start at a reasonable $10 and hold 8 Beyblades. That’s right, 8 Beyblades.
What child with a brother and more than one friend has 8 Beyblades when they come in packs of 3? No child I birthed, I assure you, and no child Mikey and Nico know, either. Ludicrous. “Beylockers” are the hot dog buns of toys. You have to keep buying until, with the magic of applied mathematics, the number of Beyblades equals the number of Beylocker slots.
I copied Nate’s dad and bought the boys a tackle box. Actually, he gave Nate an enormous lure box, but he most likely bought it at a fisher-person supply store. (No idea what they’re called.) I went to Big-5 and labored over two choices.
I glad I had to go with a tackle box because they can keep their gun launchers (don’t ask) in the bottom compartment and hold more pull strings. They have some of their Beyblades in there now, but many are probably under beds or hiding under piles of other toys. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Where were you 10 years ago when I needed this information?! Brilliant.
I had never heard of Beyblades until now, but I do love tackle boxes. I have used various configurations over the years for craft supplies and found them very useful!
Passing this tip on to my sister! I long ago lost count of how many Beyblades and lockers my nephew has. This is a great way to keep them all in one place! Less lockers opened = (hopefully) less pieces strewn about in search for that perfect Beyblade that will destroy the opponent in battle. And my nephew is a total Nico. He doesn’t shuffle through a box of contents looking for the item in question – he flings everything out of the box until he finds the item. Then rarely does he remember to shove everything back in. He has found his prized item and ran out of the room with adventures being the only thing on his mind.
I use tackle boxes for storing ALLLLLLL sorts of things. The ones with the variable compartments are my favorite, though they don’t open as beautifully as the one you’ve got in the photo there. I have embroidery floss, make-up/nail polish, art supplies, buttons, etc., etc., etc. all in tackle boxes. They are amazing.
We used to have a horrible rolling suitcase box designed for Hotwheels cars. It certainly had enough space, but no child could open the latch–instead, the hinges regularly snapped open, dumping all the carefully sorted cars onto the floor. I ended up putting that thing in the dumpster and the cars back in an open bin. So sad it didn’t work out.
We don’t have any Beyblade aficionados in our house, but we have Rainbow Loom supplies. For several months we tried to make do with an old Ikea box with compartments, but it didn’t latch securely and wasn’t long enough to hold the loom–just the rubber bands. I bought a couple boxes at Home Depot to organize bits of hardware in the garage, but haven’t gotten around to doing the sorting (I think that might call for another marathon of North & South. Or something.) Finally, I let my daughter buy one of the boxes from me ($5), and now she has everything sorted by color, and hasn’t misplaced her hook or loom since. Whew.
My friend has an over the door organizer for matchbox cars that I thought was a great idea. I think it it is intended for jewelry. The kids can’t reach the top ones on their own, but I think that helped because then they don’t have all of the cars out at the same time.
Tackle boxes are great. Back in the 80s, my father got one for Christmas, the same year I go a Caboodle for my make up & we realized they were made by the same plastics company & were essentially the same thing. I have recently toyed with the idea of a tackle box for makeup because the pretty organizers aren’t always so practical.
My boy keeps his beyblades inside the bey stadium, which lives on a shelf. Not organized, but accessible and functional and most importantly, off the floor!
I have tried every organizer for toys, but have admitted defeat and will accept that the best I can hope for is containment in open bins. Idea for next post: a suggestion for how to store 4,343,023,999 Pokemon/Yugi-Oh/Ninjago cards. (Currently stored in two very large men’s shoeboxes. I have tried fancy baseball card sheets in a binder, but our cards must be accessible on the floor at all times.)
Oy vey with the beyblades. Little man’s currently reside in a plastic shoe container, but I am thinking the tackle box is a much better solution. Provided I can get him to place them in the little compartments rather than shove them all in and break the hinges when he forces the lid closed. On second thought, maybe I should just get one of those indestructible red mechanic’s tool chests…
FYI, they sell those lure boxes at Walmart and on Amazon relatively inexpensively. That is currently where we store all the million tiny Playmobil weapons, armor, flags, body parts, etc. The ones I use also have adjustable interior dividers so you can make the compartments larger or smaller to fit your needs.