Combining and Condensing: Baby Clothes Edition

Over the past few months we as a family have been condensing and ridding ourselves of the excess stuff that has accumulated just about everywhere we look.

The other day I decided to tackle the baby clothes pile. We regularly sort through toys  and remove excess toys from the bin, but the baby clothes get a little overwhelming. Every month or so I'm sorting new clothes in and out of their dressers since my girls are so little and my system my lovely system, falls dreadfully short. Here is just one example of how:

This photo is of all the clothes that my kiddo's grew out of that should have been in the hands of someone else in need, some of them over 1 year ago. There are actually six boxes under that pile!

When you look at that pile, you might think that my girls must be running around naked right now. Nope, in fact, they both have boxes of growing into clothes waiting for them still and dressers still annoyingly packed to the brim.

But today, I am laying out for you my system.

We are blessed to have several families giving us some amazing clothing and we hardly ever have to buy clothes for our girls. But if we were to keep everything we get right off the bat my girls would wear a new outfit every single day (some of them I really wouldn't like!) and still not make it through all the clothes before they grew out of that size.

So we start as soon as we get a new set of clothes, We go through all the clothes with our girls in mind, would I ever consider putting my child in this shirt? If no it goes in the blessing pile, if yes it goes in a box for them to grow into. When it comes to my kiddo's since they are born in different seasons I have to watch what I keep and save because chances are if I'm sorting their clothes they won't transfer over to the next kid!

I then go through the keep pile again and make sure that everything will be worn, and that it fits into the box, I only allow myself to keep 1 box of each size (sometimes less than that!) and it has to work for both girls! Once that is finished we determine where the blessing box is going. Sometimes, unfortunately, we can't find a family that needs them and in that case it goes to the nearest Salvation Army, but we do try first to see if there is a family that can use the clothing.

When I am dressing the girls and I find that clothes don't fit, they get tossed into a bag hanging in the closet to be sorted the same way as the new clothes. I re-evaluate every item once again so that we are not storing useless items. Since we plan on having more children, I keep clothing after the youngest as well albeit in much lesser quantities.



About every two months I do a massive dresser dump and I sort, clean up, and size up their dressers. anything that's too small goes into the evaluate bag all the stuff that fits gets neatly folded and returned to it's drawer and the box of clothes to be grown into next moves into the dresser and becomes the  box for the set of clothes coming out.

Does it seem like a lot of stuff and sorting? Yeah it does to me too!! That is why I've limited myself so much that 6 months of clothing they have grown out of literally fits in one box now! The more we go through things the more I am realizing how little of their clothing actually gets worn! Why do I hold onto sixty shirts when my daughters will wear the same five over and over?

Do you have a system for your kids clothing? Share it!

Like this post? Stay tuned more condense and combine articles are coming!

Simple Child Pillows

I know I know you're thinking, hey I want to learn how to make that doll! The pattern is found in Meg McElwee's Book Growing up Sew Liberated
I'm showing you how to make the pillow. . Yes I know cheezy easy anyone can do it . . Here we go

Now since I didn't actually take pictures of the project my descriptions will have to be enough (they should be this is easy peasy lemon squeezy!)

Start with two pieces of fabric cut to 1/2 in longer and 1/2 inch wider than you want your final pillow to be (keep in mind that the stuffing will make it "smaller" as well when you are determining your size)

Place the fabrics right side together and sew almost completely around the border leaving about a 3 inch gap for turning and stuffing. I like to leave my gaps in the center of the end rather than at corners so that I can get a clean corner!

Turn your pillow so that the pretty fabric is on the outside.

Stuff your pillow with fiberfil or the guts from an old pillow (my daughter had a blast ripping apart an old pillow to stuff inside her new one!)

Slip stitch your seam closed.

You now have an easy pillow that id the perfect fit for your child (or project or you or you know whatever)

Baby Showers and Handmade Gifts

My husbands family has this thing it seems where every year there must be a new baby added (granted the last two years were my girls, but hey) so this means that in order for me to keep my sterling rep as a creative aunt, I make baby gifts. . . Blankets, toys, helpful items (maybe, hopefully?).

This time around it's my husbands little brothers first baby and it's a boy. This couple is quite a bit like us as they LOVE the outdoors and camping and all those things that might just leave this one in need of a really warm blanket. So we made a quilt-gan. Car seat sized.

I made a baby afgan and the face of a flannel quilt in baby colors and sewed them back to back for warmth. I could have also added a liner, but for the thickness and warmth the two layers had, I didn't see the need for another layer.

And then for good measure I made a stuffed turtle in the same fabrics to go with it using this tutorial (I eyeballed the pattern though)

What do you think?

What kind of baby projects do you make when attending baby showers?

Indoor Kid Fishing Sets

So this Christmas me being the crazy person I am, decided to make magnetic fishing sets for all the kids in our lives for Christmas (they are all under the age of 5) They actually were quite fun to make! Here are the individual pieces :o)

The Fish:

I cut a fish body out of felt and a few circles and triangles for eyes and fins. I sewed all of these together and stuffed them with Fiberfil. I made a braided loop with jute and glued a magnet into the edge. I then sewed the loop into the mouth of the fish to give kids two ways to catch the fish. They can be caught by the magnet or by the loop.

The Pole:

I had my amazing husband saw a couple of these bamboo garden stakes in two pieces (about 2.5-3 foot each) after sanding off the rough edges I wrapped the bottom (handle) in jute using hot glue to put a “grip” on the pole. Then I tied (and glued) a long piece of jute for the fishing line.

The Hook:

This was quite the challenge! I needed something that wasn’t going to cause severe damage if it was flung by a kid, be able to house a magnet and not be sharp edged like a traditional fishhook would be. I tried salt dough but my husband’s uncle (my kids’ godfather) proved that that wasn’t going to cut it by dropping it and watching it shatter into pieces. He then quickly twisted a hook out of thick copper wire that was almost perfect! The Magnet had to be wedged into the ends of the wire and wrapped in jute to hide, but the copper works well, is light, no sharp edges and well looks good!

The Bag:

My Simple Produce Bag pattern only made out of muslin and measured to the length of the pole.

Ta Da!! Full fishing sets for the babies!

Felt Magnet ABC’s

Somewhere on Pinterest (I can’t remember where or I’d point you there) I found a post for these adorable felt letters to help kids learn their letters. When I saw these I instantly thought how awesome would it be to have fridge letter magnets that wouldn’t leave dents in foreheads when kids got mad and threw them at each other? So I decided to take it one step farther and make felt stuffed fridge magnet letters! 

I started with different colored pieces of felt and cut fat letter shapes (two of each letter) out of the felt. I then hand sewed the edges using a blanket stitch. I made sure that as I was sewing them together I stuffed them with polyfil and a magnet.

 

I know I know sounds so simple and easy. It’s not. It’s painstaking and tedious but . . . 

They turned out so adorable! Don’t you just love them?

Slave Driver Mommy ~ Toddler Chores

In our home we all try to pitch in on the housework. Our oldest is just moving into the stage where she can start to help out too! Here are the things we've been having Noodle Doodle either help us with or do herself (mostly help us with)

1. Dishes- She actually loves to do the dishes! We wash all of the sharp things and then hand her the scrubbie and she goes to town on those dishes. Mostly we end up washing them, and the floor, and the cabinets under the sink, but she's learning valuable skills here so why stop her.

2. Loading/Unloading the Dishwasher.- Before we quit using our dishwasher Noodle would routinely load and unload everything she could reach.

3. Picking up her toys.- If she plays with it and pulls it out from it's home, she can most likely put it back! We are working hard to help her to play with one toy at a time. It doesn't always work, but it's a start!

4. Washing cabinet fronts - When mommy cleans the cabinets, I'm a neat freak and I wash them about every two weeks if not more often, Noodle has a rag and gets to do the scrub down on the lower cabinets too.

5. Bringing things for the New baby.- Blankets, Sucky's (pacifier), Burp Cloths, Diapers; when mommy and daddy's hands are full, Noodle Doodle's hands are big help!

6. Folding (and unfolding) laundry- I just started trying to teach her how to fold washcloths. It's not perfect but she enjoys tearing through the house with our laundry!

7. Wiping up spills on the floor.- Noodle is excellent at finding every floor mess there is. Since she is such a pro at finding them, I started giving her a rag so now she even wipes them up.

8. Cooking.- Now this could maybe not be a chore to some people, but to others it is. I actually enjoy cooking, but anyways that's beside the point. Noodle helps us mix things and is eve beginning to stir things on the stove, We're teaching her about the hot and cold and in's and out's of cooking now so that hopefully she can have better luck learning how to cook as she grows up. Plus it is super cute to see her stir a bowl of flour!

So these are the basic chores we have Noodle Help us with. They are all simple enough that she can do them, but learning for her that helps her with coordination, following orders, basic homemaking skills and mostly they are fun for her!

What kind of chores do your toddlers do?