I mentioned a few weeks ago that Spring Cleaning is in full swing around here. I have been plugging away at all sorts of projects to organize, clean and purge and wanted to share a few of them with you. I have two little girls and with little girls comes lots of clothes.
Lots and lots of clothes. So this weekend the bedrooms were my main focus. I am really excited about a new system I am using to organize their clothes which I be will posting later this week.
When the youngest moves up a size I find myself digging through all sorts of boxes trying to find the right shoes and it is a big headache. Plus my girls get into the containers with old clothes and tend to drag everything out for little fashion shows.
So I wanted to wrestle the clothes and shoes into submission and out of reach of little fingers this weekend and here is what I came up with.
I have a Sterilite plastic tub that was $4.99 at Target. The size of the tub is about 11×17.
I used these storage bags from Ikea. It was $3.99 for a large box and we get these for storage purposes not for food. I had some leftover from a garage project awhile back- they are really thick and durable and slightly larger than a Ziploc bag.
I wrote the shoe sizes in a Sharpie on the front of the bag and I was able to get about 8 pairs of shoes in each bag. These were really small sizes so obviously I fit quite a few into each bag.
Then the bags sit flat on top of each other in the storage container. So about 22 pairs of shoes or so inside a little plastic container.
The tub pictured is baby shoes but I made a second tub with the larger size shoes that will be hand me downs for my youngest. Now everything is neatly stored away and easily accessible.
Does anyone else have tips for getting children’s clothing under control?
We have been spring cleaning around here this weekend too. Must be something in the air. 🙂 With 7 children and another on the way we have quite a bit of organizing to do. We use 18 gallon storage totes I have labeled with different sizes so when it’s time to switch out seasons we just grab the ones we need. We have 3 totes for shoes at this point. This also helps when I come across sales throughout the year. I can just store it in the tote for that size.
I use the extra large Ziplock bags and bagged baby clothes in three month increments. I used them for clothes that were given to me without hangers and saved the bags for when the clothes were outgrown. Clothes on hangers were hung in order in the closet. I’ve been able to store the bags underneath the crib, since the mattress is raised. I’ve also safety pinned paper tags showing who made several handmade blankets and bagged them as keepsakes for later on.
SPACE BAGS!!! They have been SO helpful!! I found Space Bags with my first baby and have been awesome! I mostly use the large flat ones. They fit nicely in the side area of the closet so the rest of the closet can be used for hanging clothes or storing larger baby items.
I store my kids shoes in zip bags as well, but I think I will get a labeled tote to store the bags in. Right now they are all in a large diaper box, but they don’t all fit, so it’s kind of an over-flowing mess.
I am running low on storage space but have found that the giant (I thin.k they call them xxl) ziploc bags are great bc if you don’t have tons of a certain size you can stack something else on top because they are s
oft. They are great!
Seriously, you are truly an inspiration.
I was wondering what is reasonable to keep for the future. I am 34 and don’t know if any more kids are coming and we don’t have alot of space, but if we do have another blessing I don’t want to think of all that money being spent again.
RE: Space bags, I have tried them, I must be doing something wrong because mine just won’t go flat.
Having all boys is different. Boys are so hard on their clothes & shoes. Hand-me-down storage isn’t an issue b/most things are in shreds after Boy #1 wears them. Boys also don’t require too many shoes (just one pair of everyday type & one dress-up).
I often take my kids’ nicer clothes, shoes, gear to a local Consignment Shop. I can get some money for gently-used, name brand items.
Just as boys don’t require too many shoes, also girls don’t require too many shoes. I know there are so many choices and they all look so cute. The same goes for clothes too. My kids have about 8 winter outfits and 8 summer outfits. spring and fall are mix of summer and winter stuff.
LOL- shoes are a weakness for me! I thought getting 2 years of shoes from 2 children into one small bin was a good job. 😉
We do all the same with storage bins labled with sizes too. I throw in a dryer sheet especially with the shoes. clothes come out of storage smelling fresh!
We use the space bags & no they dont lay totally flat so we put them in totes before sucking out air so it takes shape of tote then label each tote by size & season