Today I finally got around to organizing Sofie’s closet. I’m a total sucker for a good rainbow theme these days so organizing her closet by color was so much fun. The main colors are bright pastel primaries which really bring the rainbow look to life. Sofie loves to shop from small mom owned brands and some of our absolute favorites are featured here:
Getting rid of old baby clothes and things she’s outgrown is so incredibly hard for me. Every little outfit is so full of memories. But when it is time to purge I love sending gently used items to ThredUP ( P.S. You can use this code to get $10 free /www.thredup.com/r/QYRWFV) because I hope they get a second lifetime.
step 1: Choose a color palette
it sounds so simple when you think about it — if you want a Pinterest perfect closet you need to plan a color scheme in advance. But most people accumulate items they love as they go and so the whole closet is a hodge pudge of various tones. Rainbow is a great theme for a kids closet because you really get the breadth of all of the fun kids colors. When Sofie was an infant though I did a completely monochromatic closet with some baby pink accents.
Okay so you’re probably thinking there’s no way you could stick to a strict pallet. There’s no way you could give up your son’s favorite red shirt or your daughters crazy purple birthday dress. Well the good news is you don’t have to! For those must have items that don’t fit into the closet color scheme, simply tuck them away in some stylish bins. This keeps the overall look uniform.
step 2: design your seasons
Another great way out of narrowing down the color palette is to pick two schemes. One for fall and winter and one for spring and summer. For fall I simply can’t resist natural muted earth tones and all of the brown, maroons, and dark mustard colors. But for spring and summer in all about the pastel bright rainbows. The key is just don’t mix and match. If you have two sides of the closet use one for each season. Or if not tuck away the past season in boxes — and if your kiddo is a toddler they’ve l likely outgrown last season anyway.
step 3: arrange your shelves
Sofie had a lot of Toddler Jammie’s and tops so I chose to hang those and use the shelves in between for leggings and shorts. But now that she’s old enough to pick out her own outfits, I recommend hanging matching bottoms and tops together so that they can easily choose something semi coordinated.
step 4: arrange by color
This is wear the rainbow magic begins! Start with red and darks moving to lighter shades and into the next color. You’ll have so much fun seeing the rainbow come to life. If you do a squint test and something sticks out, it’s probably the wrong color family or tone.
Okay so you’re probably thinking that’s great for solids but what about patterns and multi colors? We’ll as you can see in my photo Sofie def has some floral prints that I just love. I tend to tuck them strategically in between other items do they don’t stand out too much. But you can also gather then all at one end or the other or fuck them away in boxes. To get the overall effect you just have to make sure you don’t have too many outliers.
step 5: purchase items to fill in the gaps
It probably sounds crazy to shop for new items based on your closet color palette instead of what your kid really needs right now. But here’s the thing — adding this constraint into the equation made me a much better shopper. Instead of just buying the first thing you see that meets that cold morning need, it’ll force you to think about what color or pattern you need, what bottoms will match, and what place does it serve in the overall wardrobe. Doing this really helped me ensure I wasn’t just buying more to have more but actually making a thoughtful choice.
Oh and it works the other way too! The best excuse I had not to buy one more coral shirt, or that bright red valentines print was knowing that either that color spot was already taken or that bright red would mess up my whole aesthetic.
So it’s a brand new year and spring cleaning will be just around the corner. So don’t forget these five tips for a more organized and Pinterest-worthy closet as you start your annual organization efforts!
