*CTSB* - Organzing Children's Clothing - Melissa from Love Affair with My Brother

Is the condition of your home giving you the summertime blues?

Today we have Melissa from Love Affair with My Brother to help us get organized! 

Take it away Melissa!

Time to get organized! Because Spring isn’t the only time for big cleaning projects!

Hi, I’m Melissa from Love Affair with My Brother. I have been sewing for 19 years, quilting for 10 years and being crafty pretty much my whole life. I have been a “collector” for much of my life too – my husband uses the word “hoarder” but I don’t like that word! This is where today’s post comes in…

To say that my baby never wanted for clothes would be an understatement! She has always had more clothes than I have ever owned in my life. At times this was completely understandable – after all there were days when she was an itty bitty baby that we went through three or four outfit changes in a day. Now…this just means that I have more baby clothes than I know what to do with. Oh, and did I mention that at 19 months old she is already wearing 3T and 4T clothes?!?

This is a QUEEN size bed and her clothes (everything but what currently fits) fill the ENTIRE bed!!!

Needless to say it’s time to go through everything and get organized.
Here’s what you need – 5 bins, a sharpie and some tape for labeling – oh yeah and the ability to make some tough decisions!

I labeled my boxes Give to Friend, Donate, Keepsakes, First Year Memory Quilt, and Jammy Quilt.

I have two big projects in mind that I want to do with her clothes – I want to make a first year memory quilt – I am using things like my favorite onesies that she wore and cute tops. I will be cutting these apart and sewing them back together – I really needed to sort through her clothes and make decisions because I am the kind of person who will hold on to her entire wardrobe because 20 or 30 years from now she may have her own daughter and if I saved these clothes for her then she wouldn’t need to buy anything. I know…completely crazy right?!? That’s why getting organized and making some tough choices is an absolute must for me.

The other project box is for a “Jammy Quilt”. I am taking all of her fleecy and soft jammies and I am going to cut them apart and make a cuddle quilt for her. I am really excited about this project and I think it is a great way to preserve some of the clothes that she spent the most time in as an infant.

Here are the types of things that ended up in the Keepsake Box:

The dress on the left was handmade for her and the shirt on the right was actually mine when I was a baby.

That was pretty much my criteria for the “keepsake” box. It had to be handmade or something that I couldn’t bear to see cut up or given away. Her Easter, Halloween, and Christmas outfits all ended up in there too. The box looks as though it is going to overflow, but that is because I decided to keep her sleep sacks and winter snow suits as well. We live in the Pacific Northwest and if we have another baby I really don’t want to start at square one with everything.

The "give to friend box" was all of Anne’s 18 month clothes and larger that weren’t going in the keepsake or quilting boxes. This made the donate box even easier to fill because if it wasn’t going in one of the other four boxes it was going there!

Did I mention I had a really cute helper?

Believe it or not this activity entertained her for the entire hour it took me to sort through the mountain that was her clothes. She played with her old shoes, climbed into one of the boxes and for awhile just sat on the bed and handed me clothes one item at a time.

The last item to get packed up was her “going home outfit” from the hospital.

Here’s what it looked like when everything was sorted and packed

And now I can honestly say to my husband “No dear not everything is staying”. Now I just need to get myself to the Goodwill and to the Post Office. I suppose I also need to start cutting up her clothes to make her memory quilts too, but that is another day and another tutorial!

For now things may look like this for a couple of weeks until I can get to the post office and the good will.

My husband was so happy when he came home and saw everything cleaned up and put away!

And here is how my helper looked when we were all done – needless to say nap time quickly followed the end of this project!

What do you need to go through and organize? Do you have a hard time parting with things too? For me it is all about the memory attached to the item. Good luck with your summer cleaning and organizing and don’t be afraid to get the kids involved if it can entertain a 19 month old, then it can definitely keep older children busy!

I would love it if you took a few moments to check out Love Affair with My Brother, we love new followers! We do weekly tutorials and great giveaways on a fairly regular basis! Thanks for spending some time with me today!