Hello everybody!  I hope you guys are well.

I’ve been tackling and frustratingly looking for space to put away the clothes and shoes that no longer fit my oldest daughter, but are still in wearable condition for my youngest.  Yes, I could always buy a bigger bureau, but then that would allow more (unnecessary) clothes to come into the house.  My way of corralling my kids’ clothes and keeping things at a minimum is by having a medium size bureau.  It has four drawers and I separate things between my girls by two drawers each.  I have their short and long sleeve shirts, leggings, skirts, shorts, pajamas, socks, underwear, and undershirts in this one bureau.  Nice and tidy (until tornado hubby comes along looking for something!)  There’s also a SMALL (NYC, enough said) closet, a storage chest (mainly used for winter pajamas and baby clothes that I simply couldn’t part with, for example, their first outfit worn home from the hospital), and this gem that was being tossed out by a local pharmacy and my husband and his brother-in-law were walking by just in time.  They were gracious enough to give him every single little piece that came with it, including the shelves, nuts and bolts!  🙂

Just in case you don’t know, that’s my oldest daughter’s name above, Olivia, so it was meant to come home with my husband.  It used to house body and hair care products for sale, but after my husband drilled holes and inserted a dowel, it became a small, open closet.  We put up some of the shelves for shoes and left the bottom open in order to place a basket (Ikea) for additional shoe storage.  I hang up my oldest daughter’s school uniform and my youngest daughter’s spring/summer dresses in this closet.

As for the shoes that my oldest has outgrown, but are still good yet too big for my youngest, I save them in wide, delivery boxes.  Recycle, reuse (both, shoes and boxes).  In order to know what’s inside after I taped up the boxes, I take a picture (inserting sizes on the pic), print it out and tape it onto the box.

Why do I do this?  So I can stay sane, save money, and help the environment (less trash for the landfills).  Extra space would be nice, but I feel more comfortable using what I already have instead of buying new or more.  I also like to pass things down as my children grow out of them.  I usually distribute between my sister-in-law (who has a daughter one year younger than mine), family members in Puerto Rico, the donation bin two blocks down from my home, and the church my parents attend.

Thanks for visiting and viewing.

Take good care.

Until next time…