Homemade Stuffed Animal 'Chain Gang'

If you have children, you have stuffed animals. They start to get them as gifts before they're even born. And then they multiply in your children's rooms until you want to pull your hair out! No, maybe not. But when you have a husband who thinks the claw machines are the ultimate challenge and plays them anytime he's out with the kids, then they seem to multiply. And Heaven forbid that you try to get rid of one. Your kid will know exactly where it came from, what he was doing when he received it (or Daddy won it) and then proceed to tell you all the memories associated with the animal.

Really, I guess my kids don't have too many, not for three boys anyways, but I was just not finding a way to store them that suited us. I had them in a tote. But the kids would throw them all around the room and play in the tote. Then Daddy took the tote for something else. We had them in the toy box, but they took up too much valuable space. Most of the time they just floated around the room and I was tired of seeing them strewn everywhere. So I started researching my options.

Toy hammock 

Okay, I had one when I was a kid. I remember wanting a toy, climbing to get it, deciding to dump the whole thing, then not wanting to get them back to the ceiling so I didn't utilize the hammock, rendering it useless. I saw the ideas where people hang them lower on the walls, but I needed something more vertical since we'll have two kids in each room soon and we'll need all the space we can get.

The Animal Zoo

Honestly, the idea is good, but I think it's tacky. It takes up quite a bit of floor space and I wonder how sturdy it is.

Bean bags

 

I found some bean bag type chairs that you can put the stuffed animals in, but right now I really don't know what color I want. I'm still deciding how to decorate this room. I know, what a problem.

Then I found the Stuffed Animal Chain Gang. When I think of a chain gang, I think of the prisoners back in the day that were assigned various work duties outside of their bars, working together in a long line, connected by chains.

I'd never heard of a chain gang for stuffed animals. I'm sure you can imagine the mental picture I got when I saw those words, right? But this was exactly what I was looking for! I found it on amazon for $9.99, but when I went back to show it to Ronnie, the price had increased. Being the hopeful DIYers that we are, we schemed about the items we could buy to make it ourselves.

This is what I came home with: a 15' dog chain (I couldn't find a plastic chain at my Wal-Mart and this was actually the cheaper, sturdier option.) and some multi-purpose hanger clips I found in the laundry section. The original idea was clothespins and some sort of hook to connect the pin to the chain. These clips worked for both items.

The chain was $5.97 and the clips were $2.97 per bag. So I spent about $12, but we can cut the chain in two and have one for each room, but I'd probably buy another bag or two of clips so it'd be $18 for two chain gangs. I also used an eye hook to attach it to the ceiling. Actually Ronnie did that, but that's all I had him do since I didn't need to balance on the table he did to attach it. I'm a little "front heavy" these days.

Our final project! I'm pretty proud of it! The animals are off the floor, they are visible and they don't take up much space!