Spring Cleaning Day 3 – Clothing

Welcome to Day 3 in the Spring Cleaning Challenge

 

How are you doing?  We started out strong in the kitchen, so today I’ve got an easy and fun challenge for you. Don’t be fooled though, you are still going to accomplish a lot today!

 

Today’s challenge is going through every one’s clothing. You’ll have everything washed by the end of the day, a pile to donate, a pile to toss, and drawers full of clothing that fits!

 

Here is your checklist

 

Gather and Sort

Hallways are a great place to sort laundry, and remember to do it. Go through your house and find all the dirty clothes. Check bathrooms, closets, under the beds, in the car (yes, I find dirty clothes in our van…mostly socks). You don’t want to miss anything!

 

Start a load right away.  You’ll be going back throughout the day to get all the laundry washed, dried, folded and put away.

 

Fashion Show

This is where the fun begins! 

In the central gathering place, create space for 3 piles – one for donation, one for garbage, and one for storage. Clothes that no longer fit, and can’t be passed onto another sibling, add to the donate pile. Stained and holey clothes – garbage. Clothes that will fit another child by next spring – storage pile.

After you have these 3 piles established – create a space for each persons Keep pile.

 

Have everyone put on an outfit, and gather in a central room. As mom, check to see if things fit right. Are the pants/shirt long enough? Check the shirt sleeves. How easy was it to get on? 

Next check for stains and holes.  Is it too far gone?  Make an executive decision, and send everyone back to put on another outfit.

 

With little kids, you’ll want to help them to make sure the clothes they tried on get brought back to the central space and put in the appropriate pile.  Continue your fashion show until all clothes have been tried on.

 

 

Stored Clothes

As the mother of 3 girls, I have held onto every article of clothing from one child to the next. Most parents I know have done the same, as a just in case for future children. Now that you’ve gone through the dressers and closets, it’s time to pull out the stored clothes, and have another Fashion Show!  Before jumping into it though, you might want to take a moment and put the Keep piles away. Start with a fresh keep pile from the stored clothing, and continue adding to your donate, garbage and stored piles.

 

Finish Laundry

Don’t forget to keep an eye on the washer. Keep it moving as the fashion show is going. As the clothes come out of the wash, don’t bother folding them yet. Put them on a clean couch (because hey, you did just clean your couch yesterday).  Once the last 2 fashion shows are done – start another one with all the clean laundry. You don’t want to put clothes away that no longer fit.

 

Finally check underwear, socks and shoes after the fashion show is done.

 

Clean the Washer and Dryer

Once all the laundry is clean, and the Fashion Shows are over. Run your washer one more time to clean it. This is spring cleaning after all. Give your washer and dryer some love and clean them. Affresh has a Washer cleaner that is simple to use, and leaves your washer cleaned out.  We just bought a really nice, but used HE washer.  Who knows what kind of laundry had gone through this before we bought it. After I used Affresh, I felt better about sticking our clothing inside. Pretty though, right?

 

Don’t forget your dryer as well. Along with behind the fridge, your dryer is a huge fire hazard if not cleaned out!  They sell brushes for the lint drawer, to remove any lint stuck inside. Also, take the lint trap and run it under hot soapy water. If the water is not running through the trap it is DIRTY, and very unsafe. Products like dryer sheets leave a build up on the trap that should be removed regularly for safety. Don’t let your dryer be the cause of fire!

 

You did it! Day 3 is done.

Grab your entries into the Spring Cleaning Giveaway!



 

*I received product for my honest review. All thoughts and opinion are 100% my own.