Welcome to Homemaking Tips Tuesdays where contributing writers share helpful homemaking tips so you can feel more successful caring for your home and family.
{This week, post by: Tricia}
Organize Winter Gear
With back to school well underway, the evenings are getting cooler and days are becoming shorter. I am reaching for those cozy sweaters and pretty scarves I have been ignoring all summer. Before long it will be time to bring out the knit hats, mittens and everything else that goes along with winter. These tips are how I organize winter gear.
5 Tips to Organize Winter Gear
Missing Mittens and Gloves
It can get pretty frustrating keeping pairs of mittens together. With three kids, let’s just say making sure gloves stay paired together is not high on the kids’ priority list. Plus, if you have girly girls like me, those mittens or gloves generally end up being pink and sparkly and princessy. It’s pretty obvious when the match is missing. Add a boy into the mix and there’s no way he’s wearing the girly gloves when he can’t find his own.
My solution? Dollar store gloves and mittens in neutral colors. I buy several sets that can be mixed and matched. If one glove is missing, it’s easy to grab another. Plus, they are cheap so it’s no big deal when they inevitably get lost.
Keeping Mittens and Gloves in One Place
In our entrance way, we have a bit of space so every fall I bring out the winter baskets. I keep the baskets by our front door but you could have them anywhere that’s easily accessible like the hall closet or mudroom etc.
All the mittens and gloves go into one basket. On the way out the door each day, the kid’s just grab what they need.
The baskets don’t have to be fancy.
I use this style. I also really like this stacking basket idea. If you’re a Pinterest gal, a quick search will reveal a ton of great ideas. Check out your local thrift store too! You can find a variety of baskets at much lower prices.
The key is encouraging the habit of putting the gloves back into the basket when the kids come in.
I try to make sure that they don’t throw the wet gloves in but in case they do I add a cotton ball with a few drops of Purification essential oil to help eliminate that musty smell of wet or drying mittens.
Make sure you go through last year’s gloves and get rid of all the gloves missing their match, gloves with holes, and make note of what you need to stock up on. Then when winter season is over, I simply stack the baskets back into the back of the closet.
Hats and Scarves
I have a basket just for hats and scarves. I used to have all of the winter gear together but I found that the kids would end up digging through an entire bag of stuff just to find what they needed. This meant that it ended up going all over the floor.
Now I separate them and it keeps things tidy.
Don’t forget: Your babies are constantly growing so you’ll need to go through and pull out anything they’ve outgrown.
This basket idea also works for the “big kids.” I don’t know how many times my hubs goes looking for his gloves or hat when he’s going out to shovel snow. Now if I could just get him to put them back in the right spot!
Drying and Storing Snowpants
While it may not snow a lot where I live, I like to keep the snow pants handy. I used to have them stored in a tote in the garage, but when a snow day would hit, I’d have to dig them out.
I decided to hang them up by their suspenders on hangers in the closet. This works great! The snowpants were easily accessible. I also used the hangers to hang wet snowpants up to dry. Just hang them on the shower curtain rod over the tub to dry out. When they’re dry, I simply transfer them back to the closet. Easy peasy!
Winter Boots
There’s nothing worse than wet boots dripping all over your floors. If you have the space, the best option is to have a drying tray set up where the boots can be set.
This year, I’m hoping to DIY a pebble tray. It will jazz up the boring old boot tray and keep the boots out of the melting snow while they drip dry. There are a ton of DIY boot tray ideas on Pinterest. An easy solution is to place a couple bags of dollar store craft river rocks in a boot tray. You can make that in a snap!
That’s how I organize winter gear for my household. What do you do to organize all the winter clothing?
Tricia aka “Zee Maid” is a wife and mother of three. A lover of all things Jane Austen and a budding potter, she also runs her own retail business, online business and blogs over at In the Mommy Trenches. As if that wasn’t enough, she has also taken on homeschooling her three children this year.
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