How Decluttering Can Pay Off, Literally!

Lately, I have been hit by the decluttering bug. And by hit, I mean HIT hard. I am pretty good about decluttering, honestly, but about once or twice a year I just start to go a little nuts around the house. Just ask my husband! What I do is I imagine that we are going to be moving across the country! I give myself a deadline - say 2 months - and I start going room by room through every closet, cupboard and shelf! I think about whether I've used the item in the last six months, or even a year. Why am I keeping it? 

Organizing a FREE Ladies' Boutique

Back in 2010, I came up with this idea to try and help other ladies out by having a FREE Ladies Boutique in my home. 

I blogged about it back then, but I thought that since I have so many new followers and subscribers now, I wanted to put the four posts I did into one to give you an idea of how to organize a FREE Ladies' Boutique. All the pictures here have now been updated and I included some new ones, too!

Why have a free ladies' boutique? Well, I'll tell you why I came up with this idea and hope to do it again someday. I kept hearing from ladies at church how they just didn't have the money to buy clothing, as it wasn't a top priority, while at the same time I'd hear ladies talk about how they had too many clothes...."hmmmm, I thought, if we just somehow got the clothes and things OUT of these ladies' homes so they don't have so much clutter, and into the hands of other ladies' who didn't have much at all!" And that's where my idea came from! My brain comes up with crazy things, but I think this time it was fun.

The first thing I did was explain my vision to my hubby and permission to put this together. The second, was to "summon" all the ladies from our church. We have a freecycle group through our church, as well as different Sunday School classes and Bible Study groups. So, I sent out an email to all the ladies letting them know of my idea and the DATE of the boutique. I also asked for help and I asked everyone to go through their clothes, purses, shoes, jewelry, and any accessories they might have that they really don't need. 

The response was UNBELIEVABLE - honestly, I couldn't believe it! I stored clothing in every extra nook and cranny, basement and garage space I could possibly find. I didn't mind because I knew it was only temporary. But, the day before the big boutique, I had my kids and a bunch of ladies who helped me get it organized. I did not spend ONE penny on the event! The only thing I "bought" was lunch {chicken salad and drinks} for all the volunteers who came over to organize everything. I asked to borrow racks and hangers from the freecycle group - and got it all! I had so many wire hangers that I had to make sure everyone took home their hangers when they left the boutique!!

I had each of my bathrooms set up as dressing rooms and all the bedrooms, too. I have full length mirrors in nearly all those rooms and borrowed a couple, too. 

Everything was FREE! That was the best part. It was "first come, first served" so the ladies lined up at my front door. Then, at the appointed time, they all came through. You wouldn't believe how exciting it was to see these women walk out with armloads of clothes! They were responsible to bring their own bags to hold their free clothing. They left smiling and excited! 

I had scheduled for all the left-over clothing to go to the Salvation Army {to be picked up from my house} the following Tuesday. The boutique was held on a Sunday afternoon. And so for those who couldn't make it, for whatever reason, I opened my home to bring other friends with them who didn't go to our church. I want to tell you that I only opened up this free boutique to ladies from my church because I didn't want the whole city of ladies showing up at my house for free clothing - just for my safety and not wanting strangers coming through. So, on Monday, I told the ladies from church they could bring a friend who didn't go to our church to come over with them to go through the last of the clothing. 

There were women who just had a baby, and needed some clothes to fit in temporarily. There were ladies who just didn't have the money to get anything new for themselves. There were lots of happy Moms of teenage girls that found "cute" outfits for them and saved their Moms a fortune!

If you want to organize a free ladies' boutique here are some suggestions:

1. Determine what group of people you want to invite. 

2. Ask that everyone donate something, even if it's just one or two small things - or loads of stuff. Suggest that they go through purses, belts, scarves, skirts, pants, shirts, blouses, dresses, camisoles, and shoes. 

3. Ask for help! You can't do this alone. Use the skills of other women. I had a crew of 8-10 ladies show up and I assigned an area for each lady and let them organize it however they wanted, with a few small suggestions from me.

4. Ask for supplies! I needed hanging racks - so I asked and asked. I got enough for all the clothes - and there were a lot of clothes. I needed hangers, and got them all donated. Any small thing I needed was donated to help out - even props for the jewelry in the vintage suitcases and some full length mirrors were all borrowed for the weekend.

5. Find a place to put all the clothes. I had ladies drop off in my van {during church} or at my house during the week. I put most of them in my garage or basement.

6. Be specific about date and time. Set a date and stick to it. You will have women who can't come, but you won't find a perfect date. I gave a "make up" day the day after, as well as an opportunity for women outside of church to come and get the last of the clothing. And I scheduled for a pick up the Tuesday after the boutique, for the charity truck to pick the leftovers up.

7.  Have plenty of {full length} mirrors and "dressing rooms" - everyone needs to see how they look after trying on clothes. I used our bedrooms and bathrooms as "dressing rooms". I put notes in the dressing rooms that if they didn't like the clothes to hang them up and put them back exactly where they found them.

8. It was overwhelming pulling out all the clothes, so just take a deep breath and go through one bag at a time with each of your volunteer crew - by the way, I didn't open ANYTHING until the day before the boutique. Come up with creative ways to put the clothes out. We hung all the skirts, blouses, dresses, jackets, and trousers. We folded all the casual pants/shorts, shirts, capris, and anything else casual on several large tables. All the sweaters were folded and set on my large fireplace mantel. The scarves and jewelry we displayed creatively - we borrowed some vintage suitcases and I had one lady drape jewelry beautifully.

9. Sort clothing by type and size. We had my living room to put all the hanging clothes, my kitchen {with several large folding tables} to put all casual clothing, my music room for all the shoes, and areas in between for jewelry and other accessories. Then, we grouped by size to make it easier for ladies to find the clothing.

10. Label everything. I had one volunteer who made pretty little signs all over with all the types of clothing and sizes. 

Have fun! Get excited about your boutique! I have thought about doing another free "home goods" type of boutique in the future, also, but I would change a few things I would do. Or I may do this again too...the ladies at church keep asking me to do it again! Would you ever consider putting on a free boutique? 

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Reminiscing...projects I've done!

So, I was looking back at some of the projects I've done this last year. I thought I'd share a few with you, remind you of what has gone on. Here is one I did in May 2010 updating a pretty ugly place - looking out my window in the basement.  It is MUCH better since doing this last year:







How is it holding up? Not bad.  Some of the paint is chipping and the plant has grown a lot.  It's been quite a task to keep the spiders from taking over, though!



Or how about the cute skirt for the laundry sink I designed and my sweet Mom sewed?






Or how about tearing down our kitchen wall in July of 2010?

Oh, and my vintage oven?

That was quite a mess to clean and move in!

Then by September we were nearly finished and I painted our old buffet and turned it into a beautiful, additional counter-top area.

I planned a huge FREE Ladies' Clothing Boutique at my house in September...and I've got some ideas for this year, too!











So, hang on...there are more projects and organizing events coming, once this fun summer is over!! I will never run out of projects - and I never tire of organizing!

And they shopped 'til they dropped! Ladies Boutique {part 4}

We chose to have the boutique on a Sunday afternoon from 1:30-4:30 PM.  It was all first come, first get!  So, I had a line of ladies waiting at the front by 1:30 PM.  I chose that time so they could go home and eat and several of them live a distance away so they could go to church, eat lunch with their family and come over!

We opened the doors and the ladies came in and began shopping.  No clothes' shopping trip would be complete if you didn't have dressing rooms, right?  So, I made SIX dressing rooms - three of our bathrooms and three bedrooms.  All but one had full length mirrors in them, too.

 {via freckle fotography}

At one point we even had a line of ladies waiting to try on clothes.  It was fantastic!  

Some of the ladies only had one or two items in their hands and so I stepped in and became their personal shopper!  These clothes were free, why not try on anything?  

Many ladies left with bags and bags full of clothing.  I requested everyone bring their own bags, since I had to use all my extra bags to put the left-over clothing in for charity. I had some ladies post-pregnancy there loving that they could get free clothes for that transitional time until they could fit into their normal size again, too.  Some just didn't have much, others just wanted to look, and still more teenage girls got so many cute things (their Moms were grateful for the LARGE savings not having to buy them clothes).

I let everyone know via email and such, that the following Monday morning between 10 AM and Noon, they could bring a friend who didn't attend our church.  Again, I didn't want strangers showing up, so they had to accompany their friends who came to go through the left-overs.  It was also open to those who couldn't make it the day before.  After noon, I closed up the "shop" and packed up all the left-over clothing.

I only had about a quarter of the clothing and accessories left to leave on my porch for the charity truck the next day.  I had booked that truck a few weeks before the boutique, knowing there would certainly be left-overs.  My hubby helped me load up the porch the night before, and that was it!  The picture above I took from my van as I was leaving for the day.  It was gone when I returned! (Note: I will not take a "tax credit" since I did not personally donate these clothes).  

So, there you have it.  That's HOW to plan a FREE Ladies Boutique.  Easy?  I thought it wasn't so bad.  Fun?  Yep.  Organizing with lots of ladies was a great opportunity to fellowship with others they may not have seen around church.  Would I do it again?  Yes, but not next year.  I have plans for a DIFFERENT kind of boutique next year!  I know, I know...I'm crazy!

If you missed any of the other posts about the boutique, here you go:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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Organized and ready to go! Ladies Boutique {part 3}

Part 1:  Crazy Idea

Part 2:  Organizing all the clothing

The organizing of the boutique was amazing!  Every lady that showed up, came wanting to really work hard!  I was able to assign one lady to oversee all the living room - which was the hanging clothes.  She had her work cut out for her, but had lots of helpers in there.  We had hundreds of wire hangers donated, so we had plenty of those.  

I assigned another lady to help me organize the pants/capris, tops to be folded, camisoles, and other folding clothes in the kitchen area.  I also asked one other lady to organize all the shoes in my music room.  

So...here are the results!  I apologize up front that there are SO many pictures, BUT there was SO much to photograph!

{Large table in my kitchen filled with pants and capris}

{Can you tell what I used to hold these signs? I had to be creative}

{Purses, tops, shorts, camisoles}

{My mantle full of sweaters of all sizes}

{Racks and racks of dresses, skirts, and blouses}

{More racks with jackets, trousers, and blazers}

{Jackets and button up sweaters of all kinds}

{We used two vintage suitcases to display jewelry}

{We hung shoes from the other mantle and had rows and rows of them}

{We dubbed it the "Shoe Department, as my music room was overflowing with shoes}

Isn't it beautiful?  This is all set up for the wonderful ladies of my church to come and take part in this FREE boutique.  There were scarves, belts, purses, shoes, pants, tops, camisoles, dresses, and so much more!  It was amazing to see the generosity of everyone who gave from their hearts.  There were some who gave the very little they had and others who gave their very best and nicest things.  We mostly had beautiful clothing, not nearly so much junky stuff.  We had a few things that we found stained or not really worthy of setting out, but most everything was in great shape and beautiful.  

Next week, is the conclusion to this wonderful boutique!  See how many ladies showed up and all the stuff that was taken!  If you missed last week's post, click here to see that one, too! 

Part 4:  Shopped til they dropped

Like what you see here? Consider becoming a follower or subscribe via email!

Join me on Facebook - where we interact and have lots of great fun. You can also see behind the scenes pictures and fun stuff I do on my Instagram!

There are some products that are linked to my Amazon affiliate link.