My Latest Masterpiece

While this is only the beginning of much more cleaning up and clearing out, it is a good start.    I present to you my latest masterpiece:  Our Clothes. Ta Da!!!

More specifically, the children's clothes. The ones that are either too big or too small waiting for another little one to wear.  They initially started off in an ugly, poorly organized state. The bins were mismatching, not a crime by any means, but annoying to any onlooking perfectionist. Also, the labeling was inconsistent. After this move, I was ready to go through and streamline my method of storing clothing.  As luck would have it, I was able to participate in two clothing drives over the last 2 months-- one for the victimes of Haiti and one for Samoa.  If there's anything I need to get me motivated to not only sort through, but part with my worldly possessions, it is a humanitarian drive. If there are orphans involved, then the motivation is quadrupled.  My dining room soon became the catch-all for ALL the children's clothing bins as I wildly sorted through them, tossing donated clothes in one pile, and leaving the keepers to fend for themselves. Then not long after, the dining room needed to be used for something other than hosting children's clothing (imagine that!) so the clothes were thrown into random bins and went back to the garage.

As part of my big spring cleaning schedule, I was to bring back every single clothing bin, get rid of any un-matching bin(by no coincidence the Samoans needed plastic storage containers! That made it very easy for me to part with them), sort through them and re-label.  I was finally able to sort the clothes not just by gender and size, but season, too.  It was thrilling!    Many are not quite so fortunate as to have spent their fun money on moving supplies and have stacks upon stacks of empty bins for their organizing and labeling pleasure, but I am one of those rare lucky ones who was able to keep Target's bin supplier in business during the recession.  Remember-- this is how I packed up my kitchen during our last move:

I do not claim to be even remotely close to a professional packer after my 12 moves. I would be every packing company's nightmare if I was hired. I don't like to pack in boxes. I don't use packing paper.  Packing companies like you to put two or three things max in a box and then pile in packing paper.  I use bins and cram as much in it as possible, and miracle of miracles we have yet to mourn over any casualties in a move using this method. (I did wrap some breakables in towels -- I am resourceful with my method of padding).  Granted,  I didn't own anything too valuable so that probably feeds my carelessness (or efficiency....depending on how you'd like to look at it).

When  I proudly presented to Kyle the clothing bins in their completed state, he was a little confused because supposedly I had parted with about 50% of the boy stuff and 20% of the girl stuff, but it sure doesn't look like it. I can explain!!! The number of bins used for clothing increased, but the amount of clothes inside those bins has decreased dramatically, I swear. In reality, the contents of these clothing  bins would only need about 2/3 of the space I used to store them in. But, I like organization, and if I don't have to mix seasons and sizes and genders, that makes finding something a lot easier. :) If I owned smaller bins, that would work, but I don't, so these will do the trick just fine.

Here's to plastic!