The following is a guest post from regular contributor, Emily R. at My Love For Words.
Last month, I simplified my kids’ closet by creating capsule wardrobes, and I’m excited to say their closet looks as pretty today as it did the day I finished that project. That’s a miraculous feat in this house! Unfortunately, it left me with another project to tackle… organizing kids clothes for storage.
We have four children so hand me downs are just a way of life around here. Most of our kids clothes fall into two categories: still in great condition or worn out beyond repair. Extremely worn out pieces get tossed, but those that are still in pretty good condition end up going into storage until the next little one is big enough to wear them. In the past, I’ve thrown pieces in storage bins, but I’ve been bad about labeling them, which means by the time another child could wear them I usually have no idea where they are. That always leaves me wondering why I’m bothering to keep these things in the first place? I finally decided it was time to sort and label our hand me downs so they can be put to good use. I made these free printable labels so I know what’s in each container without digging through them. I made labels to identify boys and girls clothing and left a blank rectangle so the size(s) can be written on them. I also made content cards so I can record which pieces are inside and how many there are of each. These will be particularly handy if you’re storing special or sentimental pieces you want to be able to easily find down the road.
Here are the labels in action!
I can’t wait to get all of these clothes sorted and nicely arranged in our storage room. Being able to see where the items are is going to be a huge time saver as the kids grow up, and the labels also make the storage look pretty and purposefully organized. Click here to get your own copy. **For increased durability, it would probably be a good idea to either laminate these labels or store them in clear, plastic envelopes. I want to say a big thanks again to Laura for having me, and I’d love to know if you use hand me downs in your home? What are your favorite ways to store or label them?
Emily is a wife and stay-at-home mom to her four children. She’s currently sharing the good, bad, and ugly in her journey to creating an organized and decluttered home on her blog My Love for Words. She also shares recipes, crafts, home decor ideas, and thoughts on life and motherhood. When she isn’t blogging, she can be found reading, cooking, or homeschooling her kids.
Alyssa @ Sweetly Tattered says
This is awesome! I was LITERALLY just working on kids clothing storage today! I finally got around to buying some bins but had yet to think about how I was going to label them. This is perfect! 🙂
http://www.sweetlytattered.com
Emily @ My Love for Words says
I’m so happy to hear that, Alyssa! Good luck. I hope these do the trick! 🙂
Mrs. LC@LooseChangeLiving says
This reminds me of a story – my youngest once said to me “Mom, can I have some new clothes? Even my underwear are always used.” He did have a point that he never had anything new his whole life. He was about 13-14 when he said this to me. We went shopping together and bought him new underwear. He really was a good sport about having hand me downs all the time and did survive. He is now a successful adult so all is good.
Katie says
Your labels are so pretty! And, I think you’ve inspired me to put together a capsule wardrobe for my sons. Very inspiring!
Amy says
I NEED to do this. We recently bought our first home back in March. We have 3 boys and all of their hand me downs are in old Huggies boxes. It’s not very pretty, and it looks very unorganized no matter how you stack it. This will fix our problem very nicely. Thank you!