Removing letters from a shirt - Easy way to revive old school spirit shirts

Not long ago we attended our church's annual children's clothing sale, and my daughter found a volleyball sweatshirt for the school's team that was to die for. She begged for it.

It was cute, I admit.

And 50 cents. I couldn't argue much. So I said yes.

And then I got home and realized. The sweatshirt was personalized.

Luckily it had vinyl lettering, which is typically heat transferred, so I wondered if the vinyl letters could be removed with heat too.

I went basic-basic and started with my hair dryer, heating the letters on high.

And it worked...After I heated the letters, I was able to peal the letters off the shirt! Now we have a low-budget way for my daughter to wear a team sweatshirt this winter.

Organizing kids' clothes: A way to Excel at it

Garage sales, hand-me-downs, resale and other sources for kids' clothes have gotten us through the last few years. The challenge is keeping tabs on my finds.

Whether it's my daughter tearing apart diaper-size boxes of clothing in her closet out of boredom or my accidentally stockpiling 20 (yes, 20) short-sleeve T-shirts in a size for my son, remembering what you've acquired can be a challenge.

My solution? It's a simple one: Creating a spreadsheet to track numbers.

I track each kids' clothing pieces by size and type, and I have it uploaded so that family members who are Christmas shopping or hitting sales to splurge know what we have. My hope is it keeps us from wasting money and space, and freeing us from having more than we really need.

Want to start this simply? Create an Excel or Google Docs spreadsheet with a column for size and a row for each clothing type. For example:

uniform shirts
uniform skorts or pants
sweater
sweatshirt
fall/winter weight PJ's
spring/summer weight PJ's
jeans
yoga/dance pants
t-shirts (long-sleeve and short-sleeve)
sweat pants/athletic pants
winter coat
swimsuit

I could expand this to include shoes I've picked up (such as at clearance or soccer cleats from garage sales), but those for now are much easier remembered.

I update the spreadsheets after purchases, and reprint the well-folded sheets as needed. It's an easy reference at a garage sale and has kept me from at least one unneeded purchase.

A Uniform Exchange?

Uniforms save you money on clothes, my mother used to remind me.

Except have you priced them lately? Thirty dollars for a skort. Twenty for navy slacks. Fifteen for a polo. And these babies don't go on sale.

Uniforms are noticeably void from the back to school sales each year. Easily I could rack up more on costs for my growing girl than I could for one in public school. And I doubt somehow I could get away with the deals I found last year.

So I brought up to some moms I know from the school a simple idea: Why not create a uniform exchange? Those teflon plaid skorts could be traded to smaller girls, closets get cleaned and families are helped. Then I posted it in our parish bulletin: A no-strings exchange of uniforms, simply email the needs and I'd match them up with a family.

I have exactly four takers. And I have a bag full of kindergarten-sized clothing waiting to be picked up from the mom who said weeks ago she was interested.

Is there a stigma in wearing second-hand uniforms? It's hard to tell. For me, I'm surprised that parents wouldn't want to save a few dollars on their August expenses, not to mention eliminating the need to travel to various stores searching for navy slacks.

Sure, we want our kids to look good, but doesn't one wear qualify an item as "used?" And, even if you didn't want used for yourself, what's the harm in helping others?

Greening your little girl: 9 ways for less waste

Bows, jewelry, doll accessories and more. Usually strewn over the house. It's the sign of a little girl in the midst.

Today, I'd thought I'd share nine simple ways to "green" your little girl, saving you money and from cleaning headaches and hopefully helping reinforce a little creativity as well.

Early on:

Watch the excess! It's easy, particularly when they're tiny, to load up on adorable dresses and more. Instead, dress for comfort - and practicality. Trying to button up the back of a dress on a little one who can barely hold her head up is not the easiest way to go.

Save small items. Those tiny newborn or 0-3 clothes are so adorable, but are worn for such a short period of time. Consider holding a few outfits back for doll clothes. They fit perfectly on Cabbage Patch dolls, many other baby dolls and lots of stuffed animals, we've found.

Go neutral. I know, it's easy to fall into pink excess. Instead, invest in neutral colors and styles (I swore by onesies and pants for both kids) and even consider dressing your darling in (gasp!) boy colors and clothing. I swear she won't recall wearing blue doggy pajamas.

Be nostalgic. If you've saved a few favorite toys from childhood, you can't get much greener than that! (Though I will say, today's Barbies have had an "adjustment" or two since our childhoods.)

For preschoolers and older:
Buy big. Conisder buying a size up for summer nightgowns. The long, flowy dresses are great for dress-up and can last you two summers instead of one this way! Likewise, buy larger t-shirts which can be baggy one year, "regular fit" the next.

Encourage creativity. It's tempting to buy a lot of accessories for baby dolls, Barbies and American Girl, but it takes up space, costs unnecessary dollars and robs your child of an opportunity to use her imagination. One of the things I remember from my childhood was sprawling Girl Scout cookie boxes creating a mammoth mansion in my bedroom for my Barbie dolls. Let their imagination take them wherever it needs to go - from laundry basket "boats" to tents or castles.

Don't discount second hand. Cheap princess dresses? Who needs them? While I know many people who swear by stocking up on the Halloween clearance, I'd rather let my daughter wear something that will hold up better. We've gotten so many Sunday or Easter dresses, likely worn two or three times and given to us for free, that my daughter uses them to play dress up or go to church. It's an economical way to indulge yet be practical.

Encourage sharing. It's tough to pass up a toy (even if you haven't played with it for months) or a treasured piece of clothing. What's worked for us is giving to another kid in need or sharing an outfit with a younger friend.

Teach priorities. I've been blessed that my kids don't realize they have a choice in suggesting gift ideas, but we also don't let them watch a lot of commercials or go down the toy aisles. Instead, we focus on what we can do for other people. We also reinforce that each family has different rules, and that it's great we can enjoy other toys at our friends' houses. It's a hard lesson (one good for me to recall on many occasions!) but I hope well worth it.

Step up! Clean your closets and make a difference

Step up and help your neighbor: Your older, unloved shoes could find a new home with someone who needs help most.

I've always struggled with what to do with well-worn shoes or those my children outgrow in a matter of weeks, it seems. If they're in good shape, there's the option of donating them or selling to a resale shop, but those with scuffs or scrapes just don't make the cut for willing buyers and all too often end up in the trash.

While you can participate in shoe recycling programs such as the one through Nike, which turns old tennis shoes into new track, I'd like to argue that helping our neighbors, near and far, is more important than ever. Whether it's helping our local communities facing double-digit unemployment (and fewer resources for the basics) or giving a step-up to those in the most impoverished countries, a donation of your child's outgrown tennies or your outdated styles could make a difference for those in need. And all it costs you is the time of cleaning out your closet and dropping them off to a collection site or at the post office.

Here's just a sampling of the organizations that regularly accept donations of used but still usable shoes. Details on these groups came from their Web sites; please confirm drop-off locations with the organization before shipping or dropping off shoes.

Heart and Sole
A project run through the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Heart and Sole provides new and gently used shoes to the poorest of the world’s people. More than 7,000 pairs of shoes have been shipped around the world.

One World Running
Since 1986, a group of runners in Boulder, Colorado, has collected, washed and sent to Third World countries new and "near-new" athletic shoes, T-shirts and shorts, along with medicine and school and art supplies. Drop-off locations include locations in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, and Ottawa.

Soles4Souls
Soles4Souls is a Nashville-based charity that collects shoes from the warehouses of footwear companies and the closets of people like you. The charity distributes these shoes free of charge to people in need, regardless of race, religion, class, or any other criteria. Since 2005, Soles4Souls has given away over 5.5 million pairs of new and gently worn shoes (currently donating one pair every 9 seconds.) The shoes have been distributed to people in over 125 countries, including Kenya, Thailand, Nepal and the United States. I became aware of this as they are partnering with many stores in Indiana for drop-off sites, as they are working, like many groups, to assist those in Haiti. Find drop-off locations and a mailing address (if no drop-off spots are nearby).

Shoebank
The Shoe Bank had just one goal when it was founded in 1989 – to put comfortable shoes on a few hundred homeless men living on the streets in downtown Dallas. The program today provides shoes for 20,000 people every year – primarily children, both here and abroad.
Find drop-off locations in Texas here.

Whether you're wanting to help others on a limited budget or simply want to start on your spring cleaning, take those few extra minutes to make sure your castoffs go to a good cause. It's more important than ever!

Clutter: The cost of conservation?

Yesterday, as I was taking my trash out, I noted that for the first time, we only needed to leave one can at the curb.

That is huge, given that I had company over the weekend and that we have a little one in diapers (who happens to be at home this week, generating even more trash).

What made the difference? Recycling.

Sure, I’ve done curbside recycling for years, but the difference is now that I’ve stepped it up beyond the cans, newspapers and plastic soda bottles I used to save. I’ve recently located a drop-off point close to my home where I can get rid of old magazines that I can’t take to the hospital, office papers that have been reused as coloring sheets, cardboard boxes and even the paperboard that wraps all of those food items that require a little less preparation after a busy day at work. I couldn’t believe the difference it made.

The difference is also in my home, I’m sorry to admit. I have a stack of cardboard boxes, flattened, and three bags of paper that I’m trying to keep the toddler out of before my next run.

I also have diaper-size boxes of hand-me-downs, assigned to various people and organizations, and boxes of things that I’m hanging on to so I can donate the next time I’m at Fresh Start.

And while I’m not a Martha Stewart by nature, I’m beginning to wonder: Have our homes, in our attempt to be more environmentally aware, become the new landfills? Is clutter the cost of conservation and recycling?

The downstream value of dresses

This morning, I swear my daughter grew again overnight. It made me realize, yet again, how quickly our children grow and how many resources support them during that journey.

I'm talking clothes.

Savvy moms have known for some time that hand-me downs save money. But there's definitely an environmental impact, too, from landfill space to manufacturing to the semis that take the clothes to Target.

I've been fortunate with both my children to have a network of friends and co-workers who are thrilled to remove those too-tiny tees from their children's closets. And their generosity helps not only me, but several other families, saving money and eventual landfill space.

I know four people, two with girls, two with boys, who shared their leftovers with me. As we had a son this time, our daughter's clothes were able to help four others we knew, with other items going to a resale shop and to our friends at Fresh Start of Indiana, which provides transitional services to survivors of domestic violence. Very few things went to waste.

This week, I sorted my infant son's clothes and found I have enough in good shape to clothe him through size 2T. I may have to buy a few seasonal pieces in an unexpected growth spurt (such as the three weeks my daughter wore 12M clothes) and PJs in one size, but I've got him covered, plus have two diaper cases full for Fresh Start clients.

I've also recently discovered Zwaggle, a Web site for exchanging children's items. I'll let you know how it goes. Right now, I'm trying to "save" for a double jogging stroller from there.

So here's my challenge: As you're spring cleaning, don't just toss old kid clothes, especially if they're in good condition. If you don't have someone to share with, find an agency tht could truly make use of the items for its clients. You'll make a difference for those families and for us all.