An Easy How-To Guide for a Coat Closet Cleanout

The front entrance area of our house is typically neat-ish. We have designated shoe areas and we are all good at putting our shoes in the proper places. And then there is the coat closet… which is A MESS. In addition to dozens of coats and sweatshirts, there is also our luggage, hats, gloves, old boots that should have been trashed, multiple picnic blankets, a bunch of retired pillows, dog stuff, and so much more.

A few weekends ago, I’d had enough and decided that it had to be cleaned out RIGHT THAT SECOND. I don’t know if there was a *smell* or if it was in my imagination, but I felt like our front entrance smelled stinky. And the only way to deal with the funk is a full-on closet cleanout!

Step 1: Remove every single thing from the closet and throw it on the floor. The closet should be totally empty other than any sort of organizer system you may have going on. Use this opportunity to vacuum it out and/or wipe down the floor with bleach wipes to get rid of any yuck that might have accumulated.

Step 2: Pick up every single item one at a time and make a ‘stay or go’ decision. That’s right, we’re going full-on Marie Kondo on this stuff. Does it give you joy?? If the item stays, it gets added to the ‘needs to be washed’ laundry basket. If an item goes, pick whether it goes into the ‘consignment/Poshmark sale’ laundry basket or the donation trash bag.

If you’re not sure whether an item stays or goes, add it to a pile to compare/contrast with what you already have. In our case, my husband has a category of clothes called his ‘garage work sweatshirts’. Each time we came across a ‘garage work sweatshirt’ it went into the pile. Then, we picked his three favorites to keep (aka add to the ‘needs to be washed’ basket) and the rest were donated or trashed, depending on how bad they were.

We did the same thing with the pile of gloves we somehow accumulated over the years. And the winter hats. And pillows. And picnic blankets. Every. Single. Thing.

Before too long, we had multiple bags to get donated to the thrift store, one pile to get listed on Poshmark or consigned, and a huge overflowing laundry basket of coats, sweatshirts, gloves and more that needed to be washed.

Step 3: Do ALL the laundry. I swear, the rest of the day was spent doing laundry — I did load after load and washed every single item that went back into the closet.

Step 4: Put the donation bags directly into your vehicle and take them to be donated at the thrift store. Don’t shove the bags in a corner or out of the way somewhere. This is how they get reabsorbed into the house! Donate them and move on.

Step 5: List the items you’re selling on Poshmark or make an appointment to drop them off at the consignment shop ASAP.

That’s it! The main part of the cleanout only took us an hour or so (the laundry took much longer), but now we have an organized hall closet and NO funky smells (imagined or otherwise).

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Crafting Your Own Signature Style: A “Me Made” Denim Jacket

I’ve felt the creative bug recently and have a bunch of fun projects on deck — including an embroidered Converse shoe idea, a large thrifted canvas that I can’t wait to paint, and a cool way of upcycling a denim jacket into a one-of-a-kind vest.

First up, the vest! This is actually my third ‘me made’ denim jacket project… and they are all different. There is just something about the joy and creativity of making a personalized denim jacket that calls to me. And by customizing a thrifted item rather than purchasing something at retail prices, it takes away the guilt factor of potentially *ruining* a perfectly good piece of clothing.

Before we jump into my ideas for this project, let’s take a moment to check out my last two ‘me made’ denim jackets:

The pale pink jean jacket was perfect for some embroidery and a fun pop of fabric inside. You can read all about creating this jacket here: DIY Embroidered Jacket Project. I loved the process of making this one, but I’ve never actually worn it. Now that I’m looking at it again, I think it might need MORE. More what? Not sure yet. Maybe some tie-dye, bleach dye, or even paint? This one is still a work in progress and I’ll pick it back up when the mood strikes me.

For the blue denim jacket, I had a specific idea of a mix of kantha patches and made my vision a reality. You can read about it here: DIY Style Fun: Adding Kantha Fabric to a Denim Jacket. I have worn this project and it looks super cute over pretty much any dress in my closet.

Part of what I love about a good denim jacket project is that you get to pick the perfect denim fabric and add unique embellishments like patches, embroidery, fabric, paint, beads or customized buttons and it can be perfectly YOU for very little money. My pink jacket above was thrifted for $12 and the denim one was thrifted for $15. There are always TONS of fun denim jackets at the thrift store, so definitely look there first!

I recently had the idea that I’d like to add a denim vest to my wardrobe. So, with that in mind I picked up yet another denim jacket at the thrift store. This one was just $8.99!

I’m planning to cut off the sleeves at the seams and then do something fun with the back panel. I may also add a little something to the front too, we will just have to see how it all turns out when I start working on it.

When it comes to inspiration for this project, I’m kind of all over the place. Here are the top ideas that are currently in my head:

This Sunrise Moonrise dress from Thread + Sprout (click the arrow to see the moon side, that’s the one I really love):

This sweatshirt and sweater from Marine Layer:

These adorable embroidered projects from Flynn and Mabel:

Right now, I’m thinking I might do some sort of hybrid idea — perhaps a moon and stars on the back (with some of those cool mountains on the bottom) and then some embroidery on the front pocket? I haven’t done anything with paint in awhile, so maybe I’ll paint the back and then surround each color with embroidery or even beads.

The possibilities are endless!

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Before & After: Dying Gingham Linen

I found this absolutely fabulous Lou & Grey linen cropped blouse on Poshmark for $20.

I loved everything about it. The linen was lightweight, but not transparent. The boxy shape was cute with a high-waisted skirt. The rolled sleeves were super flattering. I even liked the faint pink background and the brown gingham pattern. Oh, and $20. LOVE IT.

I loved it so much, I kind of wanted it in another color.

So, I searched Poshmark some more and came up with more of the exact same top I owned, as well as one that had a hot pink gingham (no, thank you).

And then I had an idea. I hit ‘like’ on all the tops that were the same colorway I owned, and then waited until someone offered me one at $20 before scooping it up.

Then, when it arrived. I pulled out the Indigo dye (purchased off Amazon for $6.51).

To be honest, at first, I was thinking a darker green dye – like maybe a grey-moss. But with the background being light pink, color theory says that the green dye would have turned it mud brown. I picked Indigo, because if the pink hung around when I dyed it… it would go towards purple. Which is totally fine.

Here’s the shirt before I dyed it, along with another tank top I decided to throw in the dye.

I used hot water as it came out of my tap (about 120 degrees, not the 140 that is recommended) and dumped the entire bottle of dye in with a few gallons of water. Then, I added the two shirts and stirred constantly until I got bored.

Which was 10 minutes later. And not the 30 minutes they recommend. Oh well.

I left the linen top in the dye bath and pulled out the cotton tank top. It took me probably 5-10 minutes of rinsing it to get the water to run mostly clear. Then, I pulled out the linen top – so it probably was in the dye bath about 15-20 minutes.

I put my gloves on and I rinsed. And rinsed. And rinsed.

Finally, when the water ran mostly clear I gave them each one good squeeze. Here is the color when they are still dripping wet:

I threw them in the washing machine on a speed load with a couple random t-shirts and a hand towel. When the load was done, I put everything in the dryer for about 20 minutes.

Here’s the tank top. Kind of a bummer. I was hoping you’d still see a little of the tie-dye design, but meh.

It’s fine. I wear it around the house when I’m lazy and I didn’t love the color combo it had previously (I also thrifted it for a couple bucks a while ago, so no big deal).

I AM super happy with the linen top though!

It turned out so great! The gingham is still fully visible and reads like a darker brown with the indigo. And this gives me another option to the top that I like so much too.

Here they are next to each other as a little before/after… but I own them both.

As a little reminder, if you have items you love in your closet that need a little color refresh, Rit Dye is pretty much as easy as can be to use. I didn’t bother with the adding salt, or adding dish soap, or vinegar, or boiling my water. I just threw some dye in some water. A monkey can do it. Actually, a monkey would have probably been more patient than I was and left it in the dye stirring for 30 minutes. So, there’s that.

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