Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Organizing A Child's Clothing On A Dime

I buy ahead for Emerson & have found organization to be essential component to keeping up our clothing stockpile, despite our small closets.


I use this over the door organizer (Walmart $6.98) for things that we need access to on a daily basis:  bloomers, extra hair clips, & sun hats.  The sides hold bags for her diaper pail, masking tape & pens, & other essentials.  It's a great way to maximize her small closet & now is the time of year to buy such an item. 


Immediately to the left I used a nail to hang E's extra cloth wipes in a bag that once held our t-shirt sheets.  Because I only hang her Sunday dresses,  I have her sizes for the next year organized & ready to go.  I find that if I have access to all of her dresses I can get more creative when dressing for cold weather without purchasing anything new.  Below her clothes, in the after Christmas clearance snowflake basket, are Emerson's pre-fold diapers & covers; to the right of that is a shoe box that holds her shoes.  In the 3 drawer plastic organizer I've got a drawer for E's pocket diapers, a drawer for wipes, & a drawer for baby powder, q-tips, & first aid equipment, etc.


To the right of the plastic storage bins I have another storage system.  The shelves in the back are made of my re-purposed childhood nightstand.  It holds all of E's future clothes for the next year.  Because we try to shop sales or resale for Emerson it's helpful to see what she needs ahead of time.  I've found this to be a great money saving system & I have to say it also helps calm my nerves when I worry that we need to go out & buy a bunch of clothes for the next season; it's nice to have a tangible reminder that our child won't be cold in winter.  The plastic tub I got from my mom & it holds winter blankets, while the paper bag holds free store hangers.  Side note:  Don't waste your money on kids hangers!  Most stores will give you their hangers when you buy clothes, so you don't need to worry about purchasing them, even resale shops! 


We've also tried to maximize the vertical storage of Emerson's closet; so we put in boards the depth of the close & I try to stack things as high as possible.  In that orange shoe box I have all of E's shoes in the next size, so when she outgrows her current size I don't go to the store, I can just look in that box.


In E's drawers I use boxes to wrangler in smaller items like socks or tights.  This is particularly helpful with newborns because all of their stuff is tiny. 

I have found that by buying ahead & keeping everything meticulously organized I can save a ton of money on clothing our daughter.  It just takes a little bit of creativity & a lot of organization.   

2 comments:

  1. Love this, I am always looking for tips to organize all the "stuff" that we need and accumulate with kids.
    Thanks!
    xoxo

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  2. They need so much stuff don't they?! Glad this is helpful! :)

    ReplyDelete