I know I can’t possibly be the only person struggling to get a dvd collection under control. Could I?

Do you have a collection of dvd’s that looks similar to this…

No? That’s just my crew? Lovely.

I know we all love a good before and after photo, so I’ll go ahead and share what my before and after looks like first. I realize this goes against the grain by sharing these photos before explaining how I completed the project. I’m just too excited not to show you the drastic change made while organizing this collection.

Check. This. Out. ….

Yes! I knooooow! What a difference, right??

And yes, those 2 little baskets contain our entire collection of dvd’s!

Isn’t organization a wonderful thing? *deep cleansing breath in*

Words can not explain how excited I am to have completed this project. It feels so good to have our dvd’s in order and the ability to easily access our entire collection. This project was simple to complete – that is, once I figured out which solution I was going with.

First, you’re probably wondering how those cases ended up in that large bin. Or why I had those 2 binders? It helps to know where we were as opposed to where we are now.

Last month, as I was doing some daily cleaning and going room to room, I noticed a little trend: empty dvd cases scattered throughout the house. This realization made my head spin. When I say the cases were everywhere, I mean everywhere.

There were a couple in my bedroom dresser…

A sizable stack in one of our kitchen cabinets…(don’t ask!)…

A few in my daughter’s bedroom…

And guess what? When I put more thought into it – there were even a few in the center console of my car!…

Trouble is, once we removed the dvd from the case and stored it in our previous organizer (more on this below), the cases were left to float around the house. After we open a dvd the kids love to look at the case. Your kids too? However, once they are done enjoying it, we weren’t religious about keeping up with our system for storing them.

The cases were stored in this bin….adult movie cases were in another (just as sizable) bin…

While it’s a great bin for storing cases, the location wasn’t the most convenient —> our attic. In order to put away a case I had to get the attic key, go upstairs to the attic, dig around for the bin, and throw the case inside…

As evidenced by the cases throughout the house and car, that system was not working.

As far as where the actual dvd’s were living? A few years ago, I invested in these Case Logic media binders…

At the time, I thought they were the organization answer. And they were for a while, at least…

We had one binder for the kids movies and one binder for adult movies. But yes, you know it’s coming….there were issues with this binder:

1. Our movie collection had outgrown the binder space.

2. Over time the slots that hold the dvd’s loosened up and didn’t hold the dvd’s as snug anymore. That means when the kids browse through the binder, dvd’s fell out all over the floor. Annoying!!!

3. The binders are heavy and awkward for the kids to carry.

4. The magnetic strap that keeps the binder closed had worn down and flopped about while you flipped through the pages.

Once I found this awesome product…

…(which took a bit of research), the process was easy going from there. If you’ve never seen these sweet little pieces of plastic – they are heaven for an organizer like me!

You see, this….

Which is much, much thinner than a regular dvd case…

Can turn these 2 dvd’s…

Into this ONE thin dvd holder…again, this is TWO dvd’s!…

Once more, so you can really see the impact…the 2 original plastic dvd cases (on the bottom) vs. the same 2 dvd’s with their inserts inside one little plastic sleeve (on the top)…

Genius! Thank you, Atlantic!!

The rest of the project was just the time it took to sort through our collection, choose the keepers, and move the dvd’s and inserts to the new plastic sleeves. To maximize even more space, whenever possible I placed 2 like dvd’s together…

 

That idea also worked when I came across dvd’s with that 2nd disc. Otherwise known as the disc of “bonus features” that, as far as I know, no one ever watches. ???

As I went through the process of unloading the old dvd cases, I placed the empty case inside the old bin…

And placed the new plastic sleeves inside the new baskets – in alphabetical order. This is the kids dvd basket…

The basket on the left contains adult movies along with our favorite Christmas dvd’s…

And here is the remaining stack of purged movies…(we have several of these on apple tv now)…

Once the baskets were completed, they fit perfectly inside our tv stand…

 

Love, love this!

To wrap up, I thought you may like to know the final project cost and where you can find these items should you choose to do this project in your own home – which I highly recommend!

*atlantic plastic sleeves: $13.99 each at target. I did find them online but they were more $$. I purchased 4 boxes and have about 15 remaining sleeves for any new dvd’s. Each sleeve holds 2 dvd’s, which means one box of sleeve’s holds 50. You can really maximize your dvd storage space using these!

*2 woven baskets: $3.35 each on sale at michael’s.

Total cost = $62.66

(Your cost could be less or more depending on how many plastic sleeves you require).

Once again, that amazing before and after!…

Makes this organizer smile! 🙂