Friday, February 5, 2010

A dress as a shirt - what a fashion statement!

I can thank a very close friend of mine for this next tip (KB).  I first saw it on her little girls.  She had them both dressed in cute little dresses but with pants under them.  I thought, what a great idea!!  The dresses were too short to wear by themselves but they still fit, so why not just put a pair of pants or leggings under the dress and it instantly became a shirt!

I reuse so much of the girls clothes in this same way:
  • Pants that become too short turn into capris and sometimes even shorts
  • Dresses as shirts
  • Sweaters/jackets become overshirts that you just don't close
  • Shorts fit for a few spring/summers because the girls seem to thin out but not grow too much that they become to short on the legs
  • Tights become leggings (with a little help from Grandma's sewing)
  • Wearing a long sleeve shirt under a tank, short sleeve shirt or dress
With the way they make clothes, little baby clothes can still fit even when they are 1 or 2.  Or in Avery's case, 4 or 5.  She is just a petite little thing!  Izzie is modeling one of her shirt dresses with the long sleeve shirt under on the left.

Next time you are going through the kids closets and think things are too small or you need to get a whole new wardrobe, see what you can do to make it last just a bit longer.  I bet you will be surprised what may still fit! 

(Note: I haven't found a way to make boys clothes last longer and they are almost always ruined after one season :-)

2 comments:

Wendy (Give Love Create Happiness) said...

she looks so sweet!

Anonymous said...

Carson is really easy on his clothes so far. His clothes are in awesome shape when he has outgrown them. Lucky for me, my neighborhood has a huge 100+ family garage sale event every year. So I just have to setup tables and open my garage door to sell off clothing and shoes...and toys. I have repeat customers at my garage sales...waiting outside the door at 8am...because they know the clothes are is such great shape.
I keep a rubbermaid tub in Carson's closet that fills up through the year with items that no longer fit.
I have on occassion extended the life of shirts by layering another shirt underneath. Carson tends to outgrown shirts in the torso. I will then put a lightweight shirt underneath to get that layered effect. Because the shirts underneath are just for layering, they can be cheap ones...as long as they are soft (don't buy cheap shirts that are scratchy).

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