Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Keeping Baby Clothes Organized

Though baby clothes seem small and insignificant, they can bring utter chaos to closets and drawers. These tiny garments are especially apt for creating an organizational nightmare, and if you have two or three children, the problem is exponential. Keeping babies and young children looking great while upholding a tidy home just takes a little extra organizational strategy, and the payoff is amazing.
It is not only important to keep baby clothes organized in order to have a tidy house, but it also helps you find the garments you are looking for on a daily basis. This includes storing those seasonal garments or hand-me-downs as well as those in current use, so that they are easily located. When storing baby clothes, it is important to sort them by size and season. This allows you to pick the box with the size and season you need rather than sorting through several boxes finding those spring shirts in a box full of all different sizes and types of clothes. This way, you are only looking for one box.
When hanging baby clothes, be sure to use the right baby clothes hangers. Baby hangers come in several materials, colors, and shapes. Add labels to different hangers to help organize the various types of clothes. Size is the most important thing to note. Keep like sized garments together. A closet full of baby hangers is pretty difficult to navigate without some type of divider system. You can use rod dividers or simply use adult hangers between different sections of baby clothes. The adult size clothes hangers can also be labeled to avoid confusion. It is a good idea to make these dividing sections for at least two years in advance so that they will already be in place as the child grows and acquires more clothes. The months will fly by, and if you do not do this ahead of time, it will most likely not be ready in time store new clothes.
Far more baby clothes will fit into drawers than adult clothing, so it is important to divide drawer sections into categories as well. Drawer organizers come in so many different forms, so the possibilities are endless, but here are some suggestions. Pajamas and footed sleepwear fit well into sock boxes, bibs and rattles work well in tie boxes, and shirts and sweaters fold nicely into wicker baskets. The important thing is to have these garments also divided by sizes and easily distinguishable.
For easy access, store those everyday garments and accessories on closet or bedroom doors. Shoe holders that hang from doors are great if you can remember to put the shoes back everyday. This will definitely decrease the rushed confusion of attempting to find that other missing shoe. Sweater and jacket hooks are also great on doors, but make sure to put these things out of your baby or toddler's reach.
Whether this article has helped you to make some organizational decisions or simply inspired you to organize your own way, spend a few minutes coming up with a game plan. The smaller the garment, the more difficult it is to keep track of. With a little planning and dividing, getting your child ready can be come more about having fun and less about scavenging for the right outfit.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the owner of Only Kids Hangers, a leading provider of baby clothes hangers and baby hangers. The right childrens clothes hangers really make the difference in kid's retail or home organization. For more information, please visit http://www.onlykidshangers.com.

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Centrifugal Clothes Hangers

Fun with old wire hangers is never ending, which is in even better excuse to replace your childrens hangers. Cleaning out one person's closet can provide wire craft supplies for an entire class, some silly crafts and some educational. Wire hangers are excellent for learning about the scientific principles of centrifugal force and centripetal force, or, the laws of circular motion. That is, those forces acting on a mass that is in a circular arc or rotation. The concept of these forces is not easily grasped without some sort of demonstration, but a simple clothes hanger, along with a coin will do the trick, and this experiment is a blast for the kids.
Once you have collect enough coat hangers for each child, instruct them to bend the triangle portion of the hanger into a square. A great way to describe this is to have the children imagine the hanger is a bow with an imaginary arrow. If they hold the point of the triangle, which has the hook, in front of them and pull the middle of the long side if the triangle back, like the string of a bow, this will create the fourth point of the square. Once they have done this, they should lay the hanger flat and make sure it is now in the shape of a square.
The next step can also be completed before the project begins. The tip of the hook should be filed flat. Some hook tips may already be flattened, but others are cut unevenly or might even be sharp. Once the hanger is bent and the end of the wire is flattened, the fun begins. Show the participants how to hold up the hanger using one finger at the corner, which is opposite the hanger hook, and then take the penny, or other coin, and balance it on top of the hook point. If you are skilled and careful enough, you may then begin to spin the hanger on one finger, and the coin will stay balanced on the hook. It can even become a competition to see who can spin the hanger the most number of times without loosing the penny or even spin the hanger with the most number of balanced pennies.
The penny is held in place by the laws of circular motion. A centripetal force directs the penny toward the center of the rotation, and the object is met by an equal centrifugal force that is directed outward from the center, pushing the coin back onto the hook. Make sure that the point of the hook points back to your finger and that the hanger is flat, and this a great way to learn something about circular motion. Actually feeling these forces in their own hands will make so much more sense than a verbal explanation, and it is possible with the use of a recycled wire hanger.

About the Author: Ron Maier is the owner of Only Kids Hangers, a leading provider of baby clothes hangers and childrens hangers. The right childrens clothes hangers really make the difference in kid's retail. For more information, please visit http://www.onlykidshangers.com.

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