If you love to go to garage/yard sales (junking) like I do, you might call a sale with only clothing a “drive-by”. Usually the clothing is thrown on a blanket in the yard and they are charging too much, and with nothing else to look at it’s not worth stopping the car.

    But this summer, I held 2 yard sales that were clothing-only and both were successful so I thought I’d blog how it’s done. All of the clothes were donated for a good cause. The initial bags that were brought to my house took up a large chunk of my living room and spilled over into the front room…

                                                                   Bags of clothing before sorting….

         I knew that the clothing would sell better if it was sorted by size. Even someone like me would stop if I could only go through the sizes that I wanted. With this in mind, I borrowed several tubs from a neighbor and went to work. I love showing “during” photos of my organizing, because I want people to have a realistic idea of what happens while you are working ( everything expands). There was no way for me to do it all myself, but lucky for me, I have a friend who sorts clothes as part of her job. She came over and helped. Then later that night, another friend came over.  (yay!!)

                                                       Bags of clothing during the sort

  All told, we estimated that we sorted 90 bags of clothing (some of those were big yard-size bags). We sorted the kids clothing into sizes 6-8, 8-10, 10-12, 12-14. And put the tubs in long lines. IMPORTANT: leave room in between your totes b/c if you put them too close together, your customers will just mix the sizes up. With room in between, they’ll put the ones they’ve looked at out of the tote, and then put back in the ones they don’t want.

                                                                     Bags of clothes after sorting.

    We also made sure all of the shoes had pairs and semi-sorted the adult clothing into types/styles of clothing instead of sizes. The last few tips are:

1. Price all the kids clothing at a quarter a piece, the adult clothing at 50 cents a piece, and shoes at a dollar a pair….and you will sell tons! The point of a yard sale is to make some money off of things that you are willing to give away, so don’t price so high that you have to make several trips to the second-hand store afterwards.

2. A new tip I picked up from a friend is to make your yard sale signs using black paint and a foam brush. It’s less stinky (fumes) than a big permanent marker, and will show up really well from far away.

        I got so busy as soon as I had the clothing out on the driveway, that I never got time to take pictures of the actual yard sale, so I made a diagram of where we put stuff on my driveway. We had a few drive-bys, but mostly people stopped. I had quite a few people tell me how organized it was, and that it was the first time they even considered buying clothing at a yard sale.

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Usually I remember some little tidbit of advice or learn some new technique to share with each space I organize.

This time I was helping an old friend who I had organized for a long time (about 5 years) ago. She & I work well together & got the room done in about 4.5 to 5 hours.
It was a lot of fun because she has a home decor business & had tons of fun stuff to sort through. Plus she let me keep a few treasures from her discard pile.

I found these cute labels and cute baskets while sorting. How lucky am I that they were exactly the labels that I needed for this room?

So for this blog post, I thought I'd share some of our adventures we had that day, and shed some light on why stay-at-home Moms have a lot of hindrances (ie: kids) that slow progress.

Story #1:
My friend had bought a very large (64+ oz) Dr. Pepper. This was her little treat/motivation for the work of the day. She left her drink on the bathroom counter, and we set to work. Her 2 youngest kids were home & fighting each other on the stairs. Then we heard a very large CRASH!!!
Her kids had gotten her drink & spilled it all down the staircase (which had just had its carpet cleaned).....on the 1st floor's wood flooring....even some splatters in the kitchen. So not only did she not get her treat, but she also had to clean up the huge mess. She warned me that with her son, the day was just getting started....

Left side before

Left side After

Story #2:
About 1/2 hour to an hour later, her son starts whining in the hall. She goes out to see what's going on & I hear the following conversation:
Son: "I fell in the toilet!!"
Mom: "You fell in the toilet?"
Son: "I got water from the toilet on me, and then I fell in the toilet!!"

We decided that he must have been trying to go potty, and then somehow managed to fall in. And she had yet another mess to clean up.

Straight Ahead Before

Straight ahead close up Before

Straight ahead After

Story #3:

I had to leave to pick up my kindergartner, and came back to help finish. My daughter kinda played with my friend's son and daughter, but mostly Spongebob entertained them while we tried to finish what we had started. With about an hour's worth of work left, we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves and the progress we had made. Then my friend went to see if her daughter had woken up from her nap.

I heard, "NOOOooooo!!! Don't color on the wall with markers!!"

Apparently her youngest had found a marker, and after marking up her own arms and legs, decided to continue her artwork on the walls. My friend came back to the room we were organizing and showed me her daughter's arms.

I said, "Were the markers washable?"

She said, "That's what they say....I guess we'll find out."

By this time though, we were nearing the finish line, so I suggested rubbing alcohol, and we moved ahead.

Right Side Before

Right side After

Last story: Since most of the mishaps were caused by the children, I know you're thinking that this one is another....but this one was all me.

I was loading up my treasures from the pile that she was taking to the local charity, I liked some glass bottles, and she gave me some ideas of how to decorate with them. I put them in a box, then started to head out to the hall.

My friend had gotten rid of a lot that day, and I was so proud of her. Since her truck was currently loaded up with things to be taken to charity, she had made a (very large) pile in her room so that she could load up again later after taking the first load. As I was walking out to the hall, dodging this and that, I looked down at a cute plate. With my eyes so averted, I didn't see the corner of the wall and hit it with my shoulder. If there had been a camera on me, what happened next would definitely be on YouTube by now. I teetered a little, shifted my weight, and had my self settled. Then I made a miscalculation in the distribution of my weight, and started swaying again. It must have taken a full minute for me to finally fall with a very loud CRASH onto the pile of stuff in her room.

She rounds the corner, and asks, "Do you want me to take a picture of this for your blog?"

Nope.

Let's just say that I was really lucky not to be the punchline from a Seinfeld episode ("Million to one chance, Doc")

*side note: as I was typing this blog post, my daughter cut her hand open with the broken ceramic handle of a toy spoon. She had to get 5 stitches. Isn't it great to be a Mom?

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Now if you have properly sorted and purged--the next step is to find the perfect place.
The rules in this area help to ensure that you don't hit any of the snags that might undo any of your hard work.

1. Measure what you have BEFORE you buy containers.
When we resolve to get organized, we usually run out and buy every type of bin, basket, or container and figure that these will get us organized. Until you know just how much you have and how often you need to access it, these "organizers" are just clutter.

2. Think outside of the box.
I love boxes, but not all of our possessions need to live in one. Some ideas of containers that might fit our items are: a mug for pens and pencils or a large basket for blankets . The important thing is to consider how you will use your items and what container will make them user-friendly.

3. Put items where you would normally use them.
If you went into anyone's house, you will probably find the extra toilet paper in the bathroom cabinet . But other items are used differently in each household. So, if you normally put your mail beside your refrigerator, then put your mail filing system there. If you put your system on top of your desk, it will go unused and sit dusty while the pile by the fridge will grow larger.

4. Consider zones.
Imagine a kindergarten room divided into "centers". In each center are all the materials needed for a specific activity (reading, art, building). By having these zones specific and coordinated, it's easier for the kids to visualize what they will be doing in each area, and where to put things away.
We can use zones to sort a child's room, a kitchen, a craft room etc.

5. Consider the priorities.
Put low priority items on high shelves or behind other items in your closet or pantry. Use bins for storage of limited use items like Christmas decorations.

6. Think mobile.
Put your scrapbooking tools in a bag for attending crops. Make a cleaning "tool box" for supplies that you use in multiple rooms.

Thanks for taking the time to read through the class. I hope that this class gives you inspiration and motivation for decluttering your life. Start with a small area like a pantry or a closet, and practice, practice, practice!!! Once you start purging, you will feel freedom and empowerment. And after awhile, you will find that you don't have to go in order, but can sort, purge, and place simultaneously.

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