Monday, October 19, 2009

Glove/Mitten Organization

We're finally getting over whatever bug took over the Nagle5 last week, but I have no MYHSM post, nor do I have a wonderfully creative hand-made gift idea for you. What I do have is a clever idea for glove/mitten organization that I'm sharing with you all.

Moving from a one-season climate like Southern California to a four-season climate like we have here in Eastern Washington has left me scrambling for ways to organize our seasonal clothing. Truly, we need to shift our clothes from spring/summer to fall/winter each year and we have more clothes than we ever had before. One of the things I've struggled with is how to control the gloves and mittens throughout the season. Kids need numerous pairs of gloves/mittens because they get their gloves and mittens wet, which means they can go through three or more pairs per day. (Some in the dryer, some on their hands, etc.) This year, I think I've come up with something that will help us a) keep control of our own belongings and b) eliminate the often heard phrase "I don't know where my gloves are!".

This was a free solution, too, so you can jump right up and do it, too!

All you need is gloves and mittens, a few old skirt hangers, and ten minutes.

Skirt hangers normally have two clips.



Take the post off your first hanger and don't remove the clips. Take the post off your second hanger and remove one clip and immediately slide it onto the post that you've left the clips on. (It just takes a little tension to get the post out without breaking the plastic hanger.)


(Keep the clip squeezed together so the tension in the mechanism doesn't make it sproing apart!). Remove the second clip and slide it onto the post. Do the same thing with the third hanger. Then put the now-6-clip post back into the skirt hanger and, viola, you have a great way to store 6 pairs of gloves and mittens! (You can use fewer clips, too...if you notice, the one pictured is Buttercup's second one and it only has five.)

Pretty cool, isn't it? (Oh, yeah, don't forget to immediately throw away the metal posts that are now empty because your children might think they are weapons. Not that mine would ever, you understand, I'm just saying!)

We had enough skirt hangers hanging around from my used-to-wear-skirts-to-work days that we were able to do four mitten hangers - two for Buttercup, one for Valiant, and one for me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We just use one of those over the door shoe sorters. One hole for each glove combo. Hats have their own holes. The kids can just stuff the gloves into a hole as they finish with them. It's in the same closet that I hang swimsuits and coats in. We hang swimsuits on the hangars you show and put them in the closet so when you need one you find one your size and are good to go.