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As the proud mom of a dedicated bunhead, nothing frustrates me more than discovering that my bunhead is missing one shoe. Somehow, the shoe mysteriously disappears from her ballet bag and we end up frantically searching everywhere for the lost shoe. We dig through the ballet bag pulling everything out. We tear apart the house and the car hoping to find the lost shoe. We also search carefully every corner of the studio, rummaging through the lost and found, looking in every nook and cranny, but the “one missing shoe” seems to elude all of our best efforts. I am then forced to buy another pair of dance shoes–not because they are worn out, or because they are too small, but simply because one has gone missing.
How do you lose just one shoe?
I am baffled as to how this phenomenon happens. I have meticulously labeled everything that goes into that dance bag and I have lectured over and over again about the need to make sure everything makes it back into the bag. I have talked endlessly to my daughter about putting certain things in certain pockets–Every. Single. Time. But despite everything I tried to do, it all seemed to no avail.
One day after shelling out yet more money to purchase a new pair of tap shoes (because one went inexplicably missing), I thought to myself that there had to be a better way to ensure that this type of disappearance doesn’t happen again.
Time to Organize the Bag
I began thinking that perhaps if my daughter’s bag could be more organized it would make it easier to prevent things from getting lost. Even with a bag that has lots of pockets, she still had tons of stuff “floating” around in her bag and every time she needed to get something she was sifting through it all which inevitably led to items spilling out.
Couple that with the fact that most of the time she is quickly changing shoes in between back to back classes and so those items that spill out go completely unnoticed. While I was contemplating all of this, I wished her bag had more inner pockets or compartments to keep everything organized. But no such bag exists, to my knowledge, so I came up with a better idea.
How did we solve the issue?
On Amazon, I found these great mesh drawstring bags that come in different colors. They are super light-weight and the perfect size for shoes and other items. I decided that we would try putting various items in the different colored bags and then put all of the little mesh bags inside her big ballet bag.
For example, ballet slippers go in the pink bag, jazz shoes in the purple bag, tap shoes in the yellow bag, extra tights in the green bag, her street clothes in the blue bag and so forth. So we purchased a set of these mesh bags and tried out the new system.
Organization? Accomplished!
Now when she needs her tap shoes, she can quickly spot the yellow bag that has BOTH shoes already together in it. After tap, when she goes to jazz, she can put her tap shoes back in the yellow bag, and easily find the purple bag with her jazz shoes. No more floating shoes in the ballet bag–and much to my delight, after several months we have not had any lost shoes or anything else for that matter!
These little inexpensive bags have saved me so much frustration and money on new shoes. They are the perfect way to keep things more organized and especially to keep shoes together. I love that the mesh allows all of the contents to breathe and you can see its contents through the mesh.
All of the different colors make it easy to spot the bag she needs in a hurry. She is also really good about making sure the items go right back in their respective bags, but she says it’s easy because she just leaves the empty bag on top. Who knew that the solution to such a frustrating problem would be so easy and affordable? I am so glad that we came up with this easy fix to keep my bunhead’s dance bag organized.
