Laundry day....again

I dread laundry day(s).  I would love for it to only last one day, but often times it goes on for 2 or 3 days.  I would say that I probably do about 6 to 8 loads each week.  About a year ago my sister introduced me to great hangers in which you can hang outfits together - what an invention!  I am probably way behind the ball on this one, but I am using them now and love them! 

To help speed up putting away laundry, I bring both the normal hangers and the outfit hangers into the laundry room and put the clothes on hangers right after taking them out of the dryer, instead of folding them first.  For so long I was folding all the laundry just to unfold most of it and then put it on hangers.  By bringing in the hangers and getting the right kind of hangers, it has saved me tons of time on laundry day(s).

The outfit hangers also help to save time when you are trying to find something for the kids to wear.  When the pants and shirt are already together on the hanger, all you need to do is grab it and you are ready!  It has helped my husband tremendously when he has to get the girls dressed.

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 :-)

Can't find anything to wear?

I often find myself going through my closet and saying to myself, "I have nothing to wear!" And believe me. I have plenty to wear.  I know I have a LOT of clothes.  However, sometimes I need help putting things together. 

Each season I buy a few magazine showcasing the latest trends and go through them.  When I come across an outfit I like on a page, I tear it out and then insert it into a plastic sheet protector and add it to a three ring binder.  Whenever I don't think I have anything to wear, I pull out my 3 ring binder of ideas and go through my closet.  If you don't have exactly the same items, most times you can get pretty close or just use the idea but choose different colors.

I also use this to make a list of items that I would like to purchase.  Often times you don't need a whole new wardrobe to update your look, you just need a few accessories. 

While I go through my idea book, I go through my closet and put the outfits together and then hang them together in my closet.  Next time I am going somewhere that I want to wear one of my outfits, it is all there and I don't even have to think about it. 

If you don't subscribe to magazines, you can copy and paste images of outfits from your favorite websites and paste them into a word document and then print the pages out and add them to your idea book. 

Here are a few sites I use to get the latest outfit ideas to add to my book:
http://www.thelimited.com/
http://www.nyandcompany.com/nyco/
http://www.gap.com/
http://www.jcrew.com/index.jsp