For quite some time I have been fed up with our clothes-keeping situation. Too often were things getting shuffled, piled, misplaced, displaced, and unkept. I have been trying to figure out what would work best for everyone – from Mama, who usually puts clothes away, to my independent little ones who are deciding to dress themselves nowadays (maybe a post on that another day!)
This is what our closet looked like, more often than not. I knew where things were, because I put them “away” — but after one attempt or two of “finding an outfit” by my children or my husband, and this is what the piles looked like….and it was stressing me out.
I needed a solution. Fast.
I decided on relatively shallow drawers, so there would be plenty for sorting.
I chose the Stuva from IKEA and added more shallow drawers than deep drawers.
—————————————–
Now I have the drawers and they are finally built (that’s a frustration in an of itself!)
They are in the girls’ closet and ready to be organized!!
Soooo…
I decided to play around with the idea of a Paper Doll.
Buga traced my templates on scrapbook paper and cut out shirts, pants, leggings, socks, underwear, pajamas, cardigans, skirts, and dresses.
We designed two fashion “collections” – one for Buga and one for Boo.
——————————————
Then we printed out label tags to put next to the proper article of clothing.
I want Buga to associate the written word with the article of clothing found inside.
Here she is “reading” the labels to figure out which word goes on which drawer.
Here is the After 🙂
Buga stuck all the paper clothes onto the drawers and labeled them.
All together and organized. The best part came the next day.
When I was done folding laundry, I piled the clothes according to drawer.
I gave Buga each pile, one at a time, to bring up to her room.
She was able to find the correct place and put the clean clothes neatly into the drawer!
Boo was happy to assist in her clothing organization, also.
And Buga took great pride in “lifiting her up” when she couldn’t reach. Teamwork at its finest.
Yay for independence! And Yay for finally getting some help with laundry!
——————————————-
I’ve created a printable for you to enjoy with your little organizer.
If you aren’t interested in using it in this way, I’ve included a Paper Doll template
so you can let your little fashion-designer create a clothing line suitable to their little paper friend.
Happy Exploring!