Changing seasonal/sizes children's clothes Part 1

Today and tomorrow I thought I would share how I go about changing the seasonal/size clothes for my girls as well as how we organize them in their closets. I am blessed with a wonderful friend who hands down all her daughter’s clothes for my daughters to enjoy. So I have had to come up with a system of organizing and rotating all the clothes through both girls’ rooms. When I get the hand-me-downs, I place them in banker boxes (we bought a ton of these when we moved home from college years ago and I have held onto them in the garage and have not regretted it once. They are worth their weight in gold. We have moved three times with these boxes, moved a kindergarten classroom around at least 5 times and now they house my children’s clothes-a great investment!) I label the outside of the box with a post-it note with the size written on it. (This way I can use the boxes for more than one thing without writing and crossing out the labeling) See the photo below. I then store them in the closets of each girl. When it comes to a change in season or size, I go through the current clothes, donate/throw-out used and out-grown clothes and trade out the new ones (I obviously put the clothes Abigail has outgrown in a new box and place in Maddie’s closet since she is younger). I also keep a grocery bag in each closet to place out-grown items in if they happen to out-grow something mid-season. When the bag gets full I put it in the garage to donate.

Stacy asked a question yesterday about organizing borrowed clothes. While I haven't personally had to deal with this exact situation, I am always happy to give you my ideas of what I would have tried and hopefully it will work for you. I think the main concern with borrowing clothes is that you will be able to get them back to the right person. I would first organize the clothes by size and by person and place them in a bucket or box labeled with the name/size. Do not think about the season, because you really have no way of knowing what size will fit when on which child. When you borrow clothes there are bound to be items that won't fit your child in the right season mainly because you did not buy them for your child. When you are in need of a new outfit, go to the size box you need and pull out an outfit or two. If you have a good enough memory, you can keep in with all your other clothes, otherwise once you've worn and washed it put it right back in the correct box/bin. I would like to make one side note on this, while it is so nice when you get hand-me-downs or clothes to borrow the tendency is to want to use them all. Give yourself permission to only rotate a few outfits at a time. I found when my girls were little, I only bought a few outfits at a time. It is much easier to handle a small amount of clothes, especially when your kids are little. It is okay to leave borrowed/hand-me-down clothes in the original box and donate them or give them back when you are done. Life is stressful enough without feeling the guilt of wearing all the clothes that were given to you. I hope that helps. I would love to hear more ideas on how you organize your children's clothes. Please leave a comment so we can learn from you.

Tomorrow I will share how I organize my girl's clothes in their closets. I hope you have a great Tuesday!