The Motherload Blog

Thank you all for your entries! We would like to congratulate Michelle S. (Commenter #202) on winning our Cheer for a Year Giveaway! Happy Holidays to you all!

Editor’s Note- Don’t forget to enter our Tassimo T20 Coffeemaker Giveaway from Monday (valued at $139),  our $1,300 Prize Pack from The Talk, and our Nintendo Wii with Family Game Night 3 Giveaway. Check back tomorrow for more!!

Over the last few months I have had the incredible opportunity to work as the spokesperson for Cheer brightCLEAN detergent which has been a fun and exciting opportunity for our entire family. I have been working hard to share with moms easy ways to keep their clothes looking great for the back-to-school season, but my work doesn’t end there since a mom’s work with laundry and clothing is never done!

Today I wanted to share with you some easy tips for organizing your closet in under 30 minutes. If you are limited on closet space, like me, or you simply like to organize your clothes by season, I have a few easy tips to incorporate in your life to help keep your closets organized and fresh!

Pull All of the Clothing Out of the Closet- To begin organizing your closet, you really need to know what is in it. Begin pulling all of the clothing out of the closet and eliminate any items that have not been worn in the last six months, clothing that no longer fits, clothing that is no longer in season, or clothes that are no longer in style.

Organize Clothing by Color- Next put your items back into the closet and organize it by color and then by type. For example, put all of the black clothing together and then organize it by style of shirt (knit, blazer, sweater, cardigan, etc..) I have used this advice over the years,  that was offered to me by my closest fashion confidant, Kathy Friend. Sorting items by color makes it easier to find what you need quickly and also discover what areas in the color scheme needed a boost and what areas need some scaling back.

Repeat these steps above for your children’s closets and I am sure you will notice a true difference in how easy for you all to get ready in the morning!

Store Your Out-of-Season Clothing- Storage depends truly on the size of home you have and the space that you can use to tuck your out-of-season items away. In our house, Rubbermaid totes are our clothing storage option and I keep my personal (freshly washed)  out-of-season items tucked away in the basement, while the kids have two bins going all of the time in each of their closets.

With my children, one bin of clothing that they are outgrowing is stored throughout the year and can be added to as items are outgrown. I have been lucky enough to have a “bin exchange” program with my best friend and we trade bins of clothing with each other for our children. When a bin is filled, I pass it on to her in exchange for a bin of her clothing. With this exchange system, I can probably count on one hand the amount of items that I have had to buy my daughter this year. It is great if you can work something like this out with a friend and by keeping a bin on hand, it helps to keep your closets tidy and organized.

The other bin of clothing that is housed in their closet contains items that they will soon be growing into, sometime in that next year. This bins helps serve as a reminder to me on how much or how little I really need to buy for the upcoming year or season. If you do a lot of thrift shopping, consignment shopping, or hit the garage sales for your children’s clothing, an itemized list of items you have on hand and sizing can help reduce the amount of duplicate purchases.

Implement a Free-For-All Drawer for Kids- Maintaining organization in your house, let alone your closet, with small children is practically impossible. I have learned over the years to choose our battles, but I never knew what battles were until I met my strong-willed and wildly independent little girl.

It is because of her that I have developed the, “Free-For-All,” drawer. This nightstand is my daughter’s drawer that she can organize and do exactly what she pleases with it. Each day we were battling her about what she could or could not wear for school. Now we have compromised and this drawer is filled with all of her favorite nightgowns and pajamas. At the end of the day, she can do whatever she wants and where whatever she wants from this drawer, provided we are spending the day at home!

Make sure that if you have a drawer for your children, that it is the lowest one or a safe one to access. When my daughter began climbing on a chair to grab her favorite nightgowns and toppled the drawers on herself, we knew that she needed a drawer that she could access with a few of her favorite things in a safe location.

Donate Often- Make donating to your local thrift store or shelter a part of your weekly routine and just imagine how much space you can reclaim in your closet and home. I like to keep a bag or bin going all week long and add as I see items that we no longer need or have outgrown, that can be passed on to someone else. It is amazing how these little things really add up over the course of the week, and how much simpler my life has become thanks to ridding myself of clutter. Make it a part of your routine just like paying the bills and caring for your home each week and you will begin to see the power you have in transforming those cluttered corners and closets.

Switch to a Wallet-Friendly Detergent- Before storing those clothes for next season and when caring for those clothes for this season, be sure to look for a wallet friendly detergent to care for them with that will keep your clothes looking fresh and bright for this season (and many seasons to come).  Do a price comparison on the detergents in your store and I am sure you will find that Cheer brightCLEAN detergent is  not only inexpensive, but that it performs just as well as the more expensive detergents.

At only $.15 a load though, it is great to know that if you need to buy it, that this detergent is very budget-friendly and they offer different (including unscented) varieties to choose from! It is a product that I am using for my own family and one that I would love to share with you! The best part though is that it will remove the day’s dinginess from your clothing and brighten the clothes you already have at a fraction of the price. Who wouldn’t want a little of that in their life…or perhaps, a year’s worth of that!

I don’t want to just talk about how much you will save by using Cheer brightCLEAN detergent, I actually want to give it to you and save you that expense for an entire year! Cheer brightCLEAN™ detergent has graciously offered to give to one of our lucky readers a year’s supply of laundry detergent. Imagine not having to pay for detergent for an entire year and what you could do with that money.

Today we are offering one lucky reader a year’s supply of Cheer brightCLEAN Detergent to help inspire you to get your closet organized with fresh clean clothes with Cheer brightCLEAN Detergent!

Leave one comment for each item that you complete to enter:

  • First Entry: Leave a comment and let us know one tip you use to get your closet and out-of-season clothing organized in your house or one tip that you have discovered through this post that would really help your family!
  • Additional Entry: Let us know you are a fan of MomAdvice and join the MomAdvice.com Fan Club today on Facebook.
  • Additonal Entry: Follow me on Twitter and get an early scoop on all of our giveaways and articles that we are formulating for the year!
  • Additional Entries: Subscribe to my feeds and never miss another thing on our site again! We have a landing page where it makes it easy to subscribe to our blogsFor each one you subscribe to, leave one additional comment.

One winner, chosen at random, will receive a year’s supply of Cheer brightCLEAN™ Detergent . Please submit your entries by Wednesday (12/22)  at 8PM EST.  Our winner will be drawn at random. Good luck, everyone!

Please check out this video below where I share more great tips on organizing your closet in 30 minutes or less!

I am a spokesperson for Cheer brightCLEAN™ Detergent and have a relationship with the company. Want to know more about how things are handled here at MomAdvice? Be sure to read our Disclaimer which clearly states how things work and know that we will always offer only the best reviews to our readers. In full disclosure, the email addresses that are collected for this giveaway will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winner(s), and will never be sold or given to anyone. This giveaway is only open to residents of the United States who are 18 years of age or older. Entries that do not follow the above criterion will automatically be disqualified. This giveaway will close Wednesday, December 22 at 8PM (EST). I’ll anneounce the first name of the winner(s) that will be added to the top of this current giveaway post and contact the winner(s) by email. I will draw the names of the winner(s) by using the random number generator at Random.org from the eligible entries received. If a winner does not contact me within 72 hours by email, I will draw a new winner. The winner(s) will receive their prize from the PR agency responsible for this giveaway. There is no guarantee that this item will be received by Christmas.


679 Comments

Comments

  1. 603

    Would LOVE To Win Somethings!!!! I’am A Fulltime Stay At Home Mother… Who Is Disabled. Have A Very Hard Time Even Walking To Take Care Of My 3 Year Old Son. With Not Being Able To Work, Makes Things VERY Tight… Would LOVE To Have Some Gifts For My Son Under The Tree :-)
    Thank You & Take Care!

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    I keep only the clothes of the season in the closet and pack the rest away in rubbermaid totes. Makes more room in the closet this way. I also hang by color.

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    We are lucky to have extra closets, so I switch my summer and winter clothes every 6 months. I don’t have to store them in buckets or bins. But I do organize both by color!

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    I hang all my hangers the wrong way on Jan 1 and turn them around after I wear that item so that I know by spring which items I can donate because I did not wear them.

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    i usually donate about once a year, this year my daughter and her fiance went to Kenya and took 2 suitcases of clothes for a village.

  16. 618

    I have two colors of hangers. I keep the warm clothing on one color and the lighter clothing on the other color. As the seasons change, I move one set to the front of the closet and then do the same for the other seasons. I never get the clothing mixed up and can always find what I need when I need it.

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    This would be a blessing to win,my hubby has been unemployed since April and every penny counts.

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    One think I always do is go through my clothes, my daughters clothes, and my sons clothes. My clothes got to my sister-in-law – daughter’s go to my niece – and my son’s go to my nephews (I have 3 they get passed around too :) ) Then what doesn’t get passed down goes to the Salvation Army. I also store my son’s out of season clothing b/c he has SO much!! I try to get my daughter to do the same, but she does her own thing at her age. :) Also I’m a fan on FACEBOOK!!! LOVE reading your post!!

  23. 625

    The Free for all draw is such a great idea! Watching our grand daughters paw through each of their drawers looking for something different to wear is torture – their poor mommy! Thanks for that tip!

  24. 626

    We donate often…yes, yes, yes! Also I have a philosophy to not buy any more hangers for my closet…SO, if I run out of hangers, we have to get rid of something before we can get anything new! :)

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    I always laugh when people say, “I have to put my winter/summer clothes away” I have “year-round” clothes! Just in the winter I add layers! haha

    clemay62 at rocketmail dot com

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    I use totes for everything thats out of season..it makes it so much easier to move the clothes to the garage specially since I won’t be wearing them till next season!

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    Since we are a military family moving to different climates every couple of years, we have a wide variety of clothing that will not all fit in the closets. I keep the out of season clothing stored in 18 gallon totes with scent packets or cedar chips when they are not in use. They are labeled and stored for easy recognition when needed.

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    I go through our clothes every season so we are not overloaded with clothes that we wont be using.

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    At least once a month I go through all the drawer when putting away laundry and pick out clothing that has been outgrown or just not worn anymore and put it in a garbage bag in the attic. When the bag is full, I take it to our local goodwill or social service. Work out great and helps our local community!!

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    I like the idea of a bin nearby for clothes that are outgrown. It would save time sorting through things later.

    I bought a small dresser to keep in the kids’ closet. Since it’s hard for them to reach hanging clothes anyway, the closet seemed to be full of empty space. I keep their school uniforms in there to save time in the morning

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    we hang a shoe organizer over our daughter’s door to put tights and shoes in. I like the suggestion of a free for all drawer for kids..

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    I love using clear totes for keeping out of season clothes. I also use it for keeping my daughters clothes organized – 1 for outgrown clothes, 1 for clothes that fit but are for the next season, and 1 for clothes that are still too big. Saves me a lot of sorting time!

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    I usually have a box or bin near my daughters closet for her clothes that she’s outgrown. They are then put in the annual garage sale or taken to Salvation Army.

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    We just reorganized our closet. We do this every Christmas, to make donations, etc. We had a truckful!! Now there is more room in our closet for things we actually use.

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    Put on your own once a year fashion show. Empty the closet, then try on each garment in front of a mirror.
    Then decide…
    Keep for daily wear
    Keep for special occasions
    Donate or give away
    Trash it

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    i keep the dry cleaner bags the comforters are put in and place my pajamas i’m not using in the bags and change them out every season.

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    I use the tubs like you do for out of season or out grown clothes but I put them on the back porch, it’s like a little room but shut off from the rest of the house. I like your idea for the dressord drawer that thas stuff they can choose from in it.

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    I have air tight plastic totes that we use for winter clothes and summer clothes. They are labeled by season and name. It makes it so much easier to find them every season!

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    I should really keep a bag of clothes going that I want to donate. My closet is full of stuff that I don’t ever wear.