A little girl's Barbie doll collection can quickly begin to take over your home. Hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars spent building the ultimate collection that your little girl is spending less and less time playing with. Before you get out those donation boxes to free-up some space around your home, stop and think. You know your little girl will likely miss the collection soon after you get rid of it, so instead of getting rid of it, you can put it all away in storage. Here's how to prepare, pack and store Barbie dolls and accessories to ensure they remain in good condition until your little girl is ready to play again.

Dolls

Before you can do anything else, the dolls must be cleaned. You can clean the dolls using a bit of liquid dish soap and very warm water. If they're very dirty, allow them to soak in the water for a while before you wipe the bodies and faces.

The hair must be washed using some shampoo and conditioner. Carefully comb the hair out while the conditioner is still in the hair. This will make it much easier for you to work the knots out of the hair. Once the knots are gone, rinse the conditioner out of the hair and give it one final combing.

Position the dolls upright so that any water stuck in their heads will drain out. Use your dish rack to hold them up while they dry. If you have too many dolls to work with, you can get a large cardboard box and cut holes large enough to fit the dolls' legs in. This will give you lots of drying space for the dolls.

Once the dolls have dried, get some nylon stockings and slide one doll in each stocking. Send the doll in head-first so that the hair is pushed down and kept in place. This will do two things – keep the dolls from becoming entangled with each other and keep dust from building up on them while they're stored.

Clothing

Just like the dolls, you want the clothing to be clean before you store it. If the clothing collection isn't vintage, you can get a small garment wash sack and just load it up with the clothes. Send it through the washing machine on a gentle cycle and lay it all out flat to dry.

Get some wax paper and begin stacking the clothing after it has dried. Place a sheet of wax paper between each clothing item to prevent colors from bleeding on to each other.

Accessories

All of the accessories that go with the Barbies can be costly to replace. Again, clean them all carefully and lay them out to dry. Use Ziplock bags to store the small pieces so that they don't get lost.

Once you have everything packed up and ready to store, start looking for the perfect place to store the collection. Look for an area that is cool and dry. If you don't have anywhere around the house to store the collection, look into leasing a self storage unit for this and other things that have no place in your home right now.