Organized Chaos: Closet Clothes Baskets
Baskets of clothes in the closet
On the bottom shelf in the kids closets we have 3 baskets of clothes. Each of these baskets contain specific items. The clothes are easy to access for the kids. The baskets make good use of the space between the the hanging clothes and the bottom rack.
The 3 Baskets contain:
- Basket of Blue Jeans and Pants
- Basket of Shorts and Skirts
- Basket of Outside Play Clothes
In the Spring and Summer the short and skirt basket will be in the center with the jeans / pants as well as the outside play clothes are on the sides. During the Fall and Winter the jeans and pants are in the middle with the short / skirt as well as the outside play clothes are on the sides. All the girls have to do is grab a shirt from the hanger above, a bottom (jeans, pants, shorts, or skirt) from one of the baskets and they have the majority of their outfits picked out. When they are going to play outside they can pick a shirt and bottom out of their outside play clothes.
They usually do pretty well with keeping the correct items in the right baskets. Although, sometimes when they are in a hurry or if they are digging for a specific pair of jeans they don’t always keep all their items folded nicely. For the most part they keep the baskets looking good. If the baskets do get messed up we can just pull out one or all three baskets and fold or organize them again.
We have been using this system for a few years now and it works well for our kids. It helps makes those busy mornings go more smoothly. Even though they are suppose to lay out their clothes the night before sometimes they forget or decide to switch into something else at the last minute.
Basket on the left is full of shorts & skirts. The middle basket is full of jeans and pants.
The middle basket is jeans / pants and on the left side the basket is full of outside play clothes.
Organized Chaos: Kids Shoes
Organized Kids Shoes
We live in an older house. Most days it’s fine, but there are a few things (like any house) that we would love to change. The closets in this house are pretty small. When the girls shared a room their closet was full even though they were babies. All the closets had in them when we moved in was a small wooden shelf with one metal bar underneath to hang clothes on. We have slowly been converting the closets to a rack system* which allows us to use the space we have more efficiently.
The kids are now in their own rooms and we have updated both of their closets with the rack system. We decided to leave a space underneath the bottom rack for their shoes. They have enough space to stack both shoes from each set under their bottom rack and line them up.
The shoes that are stored in their closets are slippers, sandals, crocs, dress shoes, and ones they were for special occasions. The girls dirtier shoes like their school shoes, outside boots, and other outside shoes or sandals stay in a basket by the back door or the garage. It makes me happy when I look into their closets and see them neat with their shoes lined up.
Shoes lined up in the kids closet!
*If you are looking at converting your closets to a rack system you can locate them at Lowe’s, Home Depot, or another store.
Organized Chaos: Hair Accessory Organizer
All Brina’s headbands, flowers, decorative hair ornaments organized and in one spot
A few months ago I showed you our Easy DIY Headband Holder. As you can see from the pictures on this post we are still using it. It works very well for our girls. Since they wear more than just headbands I wanted to find a solution that would help organize all the pretty, fluffy, and decorative hair ornaments they have as well.
My qualifications for getting these items organized:
- Must assist in making these items more organized
- Able to be hung in a visible location and still look nice
- Easy to see, reach, and get access to the items when the kids need them
- Reasonably priced organizer because I will need 2 (one in each of the kids room)
- Something that we could hang near to the headbands (which were already hanging on the back of their closet doors).
It took me a little longer to find the perfect organizer for these items. Part of the reason it took longer is I wasn’t really sure what I wanted for the decorative hair accessories. I wasn’t in a rush so I just kept an eye out for ideas while in various stores. One day when I was going through CVS the clearance section happened to catch my eye. I paused for a moment and these little blue and black organizers were in the clearance section marked down to $1.* After looking at them and thinking about them I decided to pick them up and see if I could make them work for the kids hair accessories.
It was exactly the type of item I was looking for and at a great price! The organizer fit all the current hair accessories items I wanted to put in it plus had room for some extra ones too. When I am on top of things (which doesn’t always happen) I will put the kids seasonal hair accessories in the extra pockets on the organizer too (ie. Christmas, July 4th, Halloween, etc… hair accessories during that specific season).
The organizer hangs on the back of the closet door where the kids can easily reach it. It goes right under the Easy DIY Headband Holder so everything is available in one spot. The items are visible and easy to reach. It meets all my qualifications for getting the kids hair accessories organized. These have worked very well for our family!
*I tried to find these on the CVS website, but either they do not carry them online or they are not available. You can look in your local store or I am sure there are other stores that carry a similar item. This one on Amazon or something similar might work well too if you are looking for one.
Looking down on the Easy DIY Headband Holder and Hair Accessory Organizer as it is hanging on the closet door
Organized and ready to go!
Gift Giving: 12 Days of Christmas
This year we decided to spread the Holiday Cheer out at our house this year by doing the 12 Days of Christmas again. I did this last year and it was a huge hit. Christmas morning can be so busy and this allows an opportunity to spread the fun over 12 days instead of packing everything into one day. Starting December 13th the girls will be able to open one a day until Christmas. The cost was less than $20 total, including boxes and wrapping paper. Most of the gifts were bought on clearance over the past year. We did a joint stack for both of our girls, however, you can choose to do a stack for each person.
Here is what our 12 Days of Christmas includes:
- Day 1: Christmas Ornament for each girl (purchased last year after Christmas on clearance with rewards).
- Day 2: Two Music CD’s by Suzi Shelton (received CD’s from doing a review and giveaway)
- Day 3: DVD Veggie Tales (DVD was free, but paid a small fee for shipping)
- Day 4: Two Giant Candy Canes, one Princess and 1 Cars (purchased with rewards)
- Day 5: Two Christmas Coloring Books (purchased on clearance with rewards)
- Day 6: Christmas Craft, painting ornaments (purchased with rewards on clearance)
- Day 7: Christmas Flower and Snowman (purchased with rewards on clearance)
- Day 8: Christmas Book God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Tawn Bergren (purchased when it was on sale with Swagbucks gift card)
- Day 9: Two Christmas Headbands (purchased with rewards on clearance)
- Day 10: Game (found on clearance at Kmart and used gift card)
- Day 11: Two Hooded Bath Towels (used a coupon and picked them up on Black Friday)
- Day 12: PJs for each to wear Christmas Eve (picked up on sale and used a coupon)
Other Ideas for 12 Days of Christmas:
- Hair Accessories
- Facial Cleansers or Make Up – if you have a teenager just starting to wear makeup or want to update your collection my Mary Kay contact is doing a 12 Day of Christmas set! If your husband is looking for something awesome to get you he may want to contact Ann too.
- Socks or Tights
- Chapstick
- Socks
- Gloves or Scarf
- Card Game
- Construction Paper
- Markers or Crayons
- Matchbox cars
- Small Toys
- Baby Doll Clothes
- Christmas Underwear
- The ideas are endless!
Karlie & Brina excited about their 12 Days of Christmas
I wrapped them in the original boxes or found ones around the house to put the items into. The Christmas paper was purchased on clearance and I used a coupon. Many of the items we purchased on clearance throughout the year and / or used CVS – ECBs and Walgreens – Register Rewards, Swagbucks Gift Cards or Coupons. I cannot remember the price for all the items but with the rewards it may have been under $10 out of pocket for the entire set of 12 gifts and some days had multiple items in them. We did a joint stack for our girls to save money, however, the items we picked match their individual interests (for example the craft with one being princess and the other being cars). When the girls walked into the room and saw the stack of gifts they were super excited.
