My son has a gazillion clothes. I honestly believe he has more of a wardrobe than I have ever had in my entire life. He has onsies, overalls, tee-shirts, pajamas, socks, shoes…in every boyish style, color , and size there is. Unfortunately, since he is outgrowing them so quickly, he hasn’t even had a chance to wear every piece of clothing!
Recently, I went through his closet and dresser and pulled out every piece of clothing that he has outgrown–including cloth diapers. Since I am pregnant again, each of these items went into a basket (soon overflowing) to be handed down to my unborn child. The benefit of having a boy first is that, even if my second born is a girl, the second child can wear what he wore and look equally as cute.
Dealing with our son’s outgrown clothes was obvious and simple to us in order to reuse them and save money at the same time. But what if those new or hand-me-down clothes are being outgrown by your last child? Here are some other ideas of what to do.
- Donate them. Let’s start with the most obvious. Donate your goods to a second hand store, a church, a hospital, a shelter, or some other organization. Be sure to get a receipt when you do donate because you can take if off your taxes.
- Sell them. Hold a garage sale. Or put them up on eBay or Craigslist.
- Trade them. There are various websites now where you can trade baby and kids clothes. Some include ThredUp and Baby Clothing Network.
- Recycle them. Turn them into something else. Make a quilt or a rag doll. Or use them to make a cloth photo album cover. The possibilities are limitless with just a little imagination.
- Save them. In addition to holding on to my son’s clothes for the next child, I am also keeping the onsie we brought the Little Mister home in just as a keepsake. And I may simply hold on to some of his cuter clothes. I’ll probably stuff them in some kind of airtight plastic bag to preserve them. Then maybe someday my son will have his own child wear them.
- Display them. Put them in a large picture frame with scrapbook pages for the background (kinda like you see done to football jerseys). Or buy one of Happy Mama’s adorable baby shower gifts like the no-sew keepsake quilt frame. Hang it up in baby’s nursery until he’s old enough to think it’s too babyish.
- Other. Allow me to draw on your creativity. What are some other things you can do with your baby’s clothes once he or she has outgrown them?
P.S. This is a bunny trail, yet still somewhat on topic, and I wanted to share it. If your baby or toddler has a ton of little clothes like my son does and you’re running out of closet space, purchase a tension shower curtain rod and place it in your closet below the clothes hanging on the closet rod. Make sure it’s tight, then just hang the excess clothes on it.
Disclosure: I wrote this post as an entry to win a Blissdom ’12 ticket from Happy Mama Gifts.
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