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Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Seasonal Swap
Today I spent the day doing what I fondly refer to as "the great clothing swap," the task of going through each child's current clothing, removing the items that do not fit, changing out winter clothes for spring/summer clothes, digging out the clothes from last year to determine what fits which child, and packing up the things that will be passed down to a younger sibling next year. Usually this process takes several days, where my husband has to turn a blind eye to piles of clothing all over the dining room, but this time I managed to get it all done in a single day! Blame it on pregnancy hormones I suppose, because I also washed and folded baby clothes, filled the entire back of my vehicle with donations for Go*dwill, and sorted 2 piles of outgrown clothing to sell and pass along to friends with younger children. My normal clothes have been stored, as the closet has slowly been taken over by maternity clothing, and it feels good for the first time in months to really accomplish something at home! Having 3 girls in a row, many of their dresses are handed straight down to the next sister, so I have worked out a system of moving them from one closet to the next, with next seasons clothing in baskets in the top of their closets. Do you have a system for storing and swapping out your kids clothes?
Unfortunately my system is labeled trash bags, with warm and cold weather clothes all mixed together. But it is awesome to realize that Aaron is now wearing clothes that both his big brothers AND my first cousin have worn! One benefit to all boys, we get our money's worth out of all these clothes!! (James is a size smaller than Aaron. How many kids wear their twins' hand-me-downs??? lol)
ReplyDeleteWow! That is a lot accomplished! Hope you can have a bit of a rest now...
ReplyDeleteGood job, you! I'm looking for advice on this, since in Florida we didn't have to worry so much about the "seasonal" aspect of things, but now in Iowa that's definitely significant!
ReplyDeleteMy initial storage system was to put clothes in clear plastic bins, labeling each size with a large piece of paper which somehow manages to be either unreadable or completely lost so I have to dig through everything. I am also wondering why and how I only saved pink clothes for size 6-9 months.
Congratulations on getting that huge task done! I've been using Pascha's arrival and our preparation to be received on Holy Saturday as an excuse to wait two more weeks to swap out the off season clothes in our closets.
ReplyDeleteMy system for my daughter is quite simple. I have a bin for girl's clothes that are too big and one for the off season of the size my daughter is in right now. Anything too small gets split between our two younger cousins and the little foster girl at church. My system for my sons is the tough one. He's got a bin for clothes that are too big and one for off season as well. My oldest's (8) outgrown clothes get bagged up and sent to my sister for her oldest (5). It sounds like a big gap, but my son is small for his age, so it works for now. Once my nephew outgrows his clothes my sister bags it all back up and gives it back to me. I then sit down and divide that round up between a size labeled bin for my younger son's (2) closet and a bag for my younger nephew (almost 2). My younger son also has a bin for off season clothes. Then I put everything up in the boys' closet and return the bag to my sister when she asks for that size clothing. Once she returns sizes too small for the younger boys, I divide the spoils between friends' little ones that we know can use them.
I call it the "great clothing swap" too! Ugh what a job it is! I have found with boys cloths to organize by type (shorts, pants, shirts) and by size range (1st year, toddler, 3T-5T, 6-8, 10-14, 16 and up) This means my boxes are labeled for example shirts 3T-5T etc. This has really helped when on a Sunday morning we suddenly realize my son has outgrown his church pants, I know exactly where to look! And it accounts for different brands being sized differently! Still haven't been able to make this idea work for girls clothes b/c my girls wear mostly dresses! It always feels so good to have the "swap" finished and everything organized again!..We have a few more weeks here until the weather allows for warmer clothes!
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