Laundry Land Labels {and some tips too!}

Laundry.  Just typing the word makes me cringe a bit.  But not as bad as it would have months ago.  It's a work in progress around here.

That's right, you can ask just about anyone that is related to us or frequents our abode.  Our laundry room used to be a pit filled to the brim with laundry.  Either the laundry room or the bedroom.  Or both.

It's been such a thorn in my side, but I have been experimenting a bit and we have finally found a solution that is working well for us.  Are we always caught up on laundry?  Nope.  But almost always.  Here are a couple of tips I have learned along the way:

• Simplify your wardrobe.  When we paired down our clothing supply for our dressing room wardrobes, we also reduced the amount of laundry that could pile up before needing to wash items.
• Make it easy for kids to put away their own clothes.  About two years ago I set an expectation that my kids take ownership of putting away their laundry.  It's important to make it easy for them to do so.  Whether labeling their drawers or their closet bins, a simple system is key.
• Don't sort everything.  I used to sort down everything.  I tried it every which way.  By person.  By color.  By type.  All that sorting and categorizing was allowing the piles to build and build and then playing catchup took all day.  Now, we only sort delicate pieces, whites and linens.  The rest gets washed together.
• Create a system.  Instead of letting the laundry pile, we have a goal to empty everyone's hamper once a day.  Yep, you heard it right.  The kid's share a dirty clothes bin and the hubs and I have two {one in our dressing room and one in the bathroom}.  Each night, the clothes are gathered from all and sorted into one of the three categories mentioned above: delicate, whites or linens.  If it's not any of those items, into the washing machine it goes.  Once the laundry machine is full, it gets run.  Then, one day of the week is dedicated to those other "special" categories.
• Be aware of washing frequency.  Call me gross, but we wear our jeans two to three times before they get washed.  Just jeans.  I don't know why, but that's how I was raised and now how I have been raising my babes.  {And apparently there is something to it; it extends the life of the jean, you have to wash less often and it saves more water}.  Linens are washed once per week {towels and bedding}. 

Ever since we made some fab updates to the laundry room, I actually enjoy being in there.  As much as one could.  So we have been trying to manage the new system and so far, it has gone pretty well.

The whole point of today's post was to share a little laundry room switcharoo that we made, but since it was based on our newer system, I thought I would give you the back story first to make more sense of the project.

We started out by using some cheapo old white laundry baskets for sorting in our laundry room.

Then we pulled the laundry hamper from the bathroom, because it looked better.

But the bins were too small for our linens and whites.  And we missed having the hamper in the bathroom.  So back to the larger cheapo plastic baskets we went until a better solution came along.

I scoured shops and the web for a prettier yet effective option.  It seemed as though majority of the sorters were far too small and pricey!  And the super nice ones like we have in our bathroom {same one shown above}, are really really pricey, especially when you up the capacity.  And when I say pricey, I was looking at anywhere from $60-$200 pricey.  When did laundry sorters get so expensive?  When I don't find what I want or what makes sense, then I wait.  Which I did until a happy day came that I saw Crate and Barrel was having a sale and free shipping, so I snagged up two of these.

The right size, the right color, easy to tote around.  Not super fabulous cheap, but cheap enough for me to finally take the plunge.

I love that the turquoise works so well with my adjoining studio workspace.  Not to mention that they fit so well and are much more concealing and streamlined than the white "holey" plastic option we were sporting previously.

Then, "Jen" mode kicked in.  What more could I do to these puppies?  They need to be labeled!

Thank you Silhouette!  You make this fun once again!

Using the same process as I did when I labeled the boy's canvas closet bins, I had the Silhouette cut some white flocking heat transfer.

And used some scrap fabric to protect the iron while transferring the labels:

It's important to be patient at this point.  The letters didn't want to adhere to the canvas all that well.  They put up a fight.  But after just continuing to heat the transfer material and letting it cool before peeling away the backing, it was a lovely finished product!

Sometimes, it's the small touches that make all the difference.  And I love that there will be no more questions when sorting.

Before and after for fun?

Extra things to note:

• The font I used is Sofia font.  Love it!
• We use the towel bar to dry our sweaters.  But we have really been lacking in any good hanging system for drying other pieces.  We have a plan in the works, so stay tuned!

Let's stop avoiding laundry and make a pact to learn to love it.  Ha, kidding.  But for realz, what is working well for you?  What's not?