Getting Organized: Anastasia's Room

We bagged up 3 large bags of clothing that is now too small (to be handed down to a cousin and my custodian's daughters), 1 box of clothing that is still too big (put up on the closet shelf, no longer taking up drawer space), a pile of too small shoes (cluttering the garage), 4 boxes of too big shoes (these handed down gifts are now boxed up on the closet shelf as well), and realised that we have plenty of outfits for the 3T/4T stage. Yahoo!

I cannot remember where I got the inspiration for this, but I made labels for Anastasia's dresser drawers--just the bottom two that are safe for her to pull out and reach into. I saved the top two drawers to be used for clothes that fit right now, but are out of season. Her closet now only has dresses and skirts hanging in it, which has freed a lot of space. The bottom two drawers of her dresser now look like this:

I wish I had thought about the size of the tags before I fancified them... As you can see in the picture, the two on the top drawer hang down too low, so that they get caught in the bottom drawer after you open and close it. Boo. I am going to have to cut them down and fix them. They won't be as pretty anymore, but they won't be crinkled from the bottom drawer either. What's the carpenter's mantra?... Measure twice, cut once...?... Oh, yeah. I knew that.

In any case, Anastasia is having a ball picking out her own outfits to wear, as most three-year-olds do! Shoes that fit now are organized on the closet floor that is no longer covered in stuff. And I bought these very cool, kid-sized hanging racks at Ikea for her to hang her sweaters so she can see them all and choose the "right" one before we head out the door.

It looks pretty good in there, and it feels nice and clutter free. She even helped me go through all of her books and decide which ones should be donated to "babies who need books". She did a great job; I didn't have to encourage her at all, she just did it. She even picked out some toys for the "babies", too.