last moon

sabato 8 settembre 2012

How to Create a Look Book to Avoid Wardrobe Wars




A ‘Look Book’ is a 3-ring binder that contains pictures of outfits.  Not just any outfits though, pre-approved school outfits for your kids.  And these outfits aren’t ones that you need to buy or that you aspire to buy, but ones that can be made out of the clothes that are already in your kids closet.  Going through this process may help you figure out some holes in your kids’ wardrobe, but the idea is to create multiple looks using the clothes you already own.  The kids will then be able to go to the book and find an outfit they want to wear that day and pick out the pieces and put it on.  No more, “I don’t know what to wear!”  Or the dreaded, “I have nothing to wear!”
To get started you will need to go through all of your child’s clothes and pull out everything that doesn’t fit.  Pack these away if they are too large or donate them if they are too small.  Only things that fit should be in the closet.
Next, put all of the dresses together (for a girl), all of the bottoms together and all of the tops together.
Now get ready to shoot some pictures.  Take a white sheet and lay it on the bed.  This is going to be the back drop for all of the outfits.  Set up your camera on a tripod if you have one so that you can just go back and snap a picture and move on to the next outfit.  If you don’t have a tripod, no worries, just have your camera sitting nearby to use.
Start with the dresses because those are easy.  Lay a dress on the bed; pick out appropriate shoes to go with the dress.  Are there accessories that go with the dress?  Lay any necklaces, earrings, scarves, belts or hats down near the dress.  Snap the picture.
After all of the dresses are completed you can move on to the separates.  Pick out a bottom, be it pants, shorts or skirt and lay it on the bed.  Now look in the closet and pull out all of the tops that will go with that bottom.  One at a time lay the tops on the bed with the bottom, add any accessories and snap a picture.  Now you can see that many things will go with a black skirt, but if it’s a ruffled skirt make sure to only pair unruffled tops with it.  Sometimes the accessories won’t need to change and you can just change the top and take another picture.  Continue going through the entire wardrobe like this.
Now you will need to print or have photos made of all of the outfits.
Gather together a 3-ring binder, some subject dividers with 3-ring holes and blank paper or cardstock with 3-ring holes.
Create different categories for the outfits.  These will be up to you, but here are some ideas to get your started, play clothes, school clothes, church clothes and dress clothes.
Go through the pictures and put them in piles according to the categories you just created.  Count how many outfits you have for each category and insert that many blank pages into the binder behind its divider.
Finally, use some double sided tape to adhere the photos to the individual sheets.  Write any notes on the page, if your child can read, telling them any extra information they might need.  Like, make sure you wear white underwear with these white pants.
If your child is fussy about what she wears to bed then create a pajama category so that she knows what tops go with what bottoms.
These categories can change seasonally so you may want to box up the out of season clothes so that there is no confusion.
Jeans are a different story and one that you can handle a couple of different ways.  Jeans can really go with almost any top so that would be a lot of pictures to take.  It might be best to take a picture with 5 pairs of jeans laying on the bed and a few tops.  If the jeans have colored embroidery or sequins then that might limit what tops can go with them, but otherwise lump them altogether.  Make a note that says, “Jeans can go with most tops so you choose”.
To save time in the morning have your child look through the book the night before and pick out an outfit and pull out the clothes for the next morning.  This way, there won’t be an issue in the morning, if one of the items happens to be in the laundry.
  P.S. This post was  proposed to me for publication by Debbie Denard I'm therefore publishing it by her invitation and under her permission. See also the link below fore more information:


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