solving baby sock chaos

Ruby has a lot of socks. I actually didn’t purchase a single pair of socks for her…but, inevitably, people buy babies socks for presents. I think it’s because they are adorable (people are suckers for anything that is the miniature version of what adults wear–like a suit and tie for a little boy) and they come in sets with cute packaging that make them irresistable to a gift-giver.

In any case, what I ended up with was a bin full of baby socks of all different colors, patterns, sizes, etc. It was immediately out of control and it drove me crazy for the first two months of Ruby’s life–I would put on Ruby’s outfit and then pull out the bin to find some socks to match and would dig and dig for the right color and then the match for the sock I chose.

If you live in a small apartment like me, you probably don’t have the luxury of a whole drawer dedicated to baby socks that would make for easy searches. Instead, they’re all stuffed into a tiny space.

My solution: take plastic sandwich baggies, quart-sized, and divide all of the socks up by color, style, etc. and then line them up in a small storage container. Label the baggies in permanent marker. My categories are: pink-whites, light pinks, medium pinks, dark pinks, yellows, greens, blues, others (red, purple, etc.), and shoe-socks (ones made to look like ballet slippers, mary janes, tennies, etc.). I keep leg warmers and tights loose outside the baggies.

My new system is working out beautifully…It take me a fraction of the time it used to to dress her cute little feet.