How to pick the right items of clothing for your keepsake?
You may have kept a lot of clothing over the years or they have been passed onto you. Those clothes have special memories of your youth, growing up, your kids or a loved one that you sadly miss.
One of the most important things to think about while you are sorting through the clothes you have kept, is to think about which items you want to pick to use in your keepsake. Each item of clothing has a distinct memory for you and will trigger the thought when you you look & hold at it. So picking the right items of clothing to use will be important to you.
You would first pick items that mean the most to you. It could be their favourite items you always saw them wear, first baby outfit they came home in or something you bought them that meant the world to you. If you start there, it becomes less overwhelming when you have a lot of clothes to go through. It can be an emotional process, if you are finding the process very emotional, take a break every so often, talk through the memories you have with someone else if you can.
Some of the Items of clothing that can be used in a keepsake:
- babygros
- vests
- t-shirt
- trousers/leggings
- skirts
- knitwear
- dressing gowns
- blankets
- suit jackets
- waterproof material
- mens shirts
- sports tops,
- music band t-shirts
- work/school uniform
- denim
- thin leather
- scarves
- and more
Socks, hats, mittens and other small items can be included but do not count these in the number of items to send.
Once you have all the most important ones picked out, and you have space to include more, then separate ones that you connect with next, instinctively we tend to know which one’s these are without being able to explain why they are special.
Depending on the type of keepsake you have in mind you’ll also need to consider the size of any logos/images on the clothes. A mini keepsake has less room to fit a bigger image where as a memory blanket will be able to fit many of the larger pieces you want used. Having a good mix of size images and logos works really well with the full size keepsake animals.
Once you have collected all the items together, you may want to wash them first, especially if they have been stored for a long time. When I receive the items I won’t wash them so they will come back to you with the same scents they came with. It also gives you a chance to freshen up the clothes as keepsakes like the memory animals can’t be machine washed. Memory blankets are easily machine washed when needed to.
Don’t worry if some items have been well loved, gained new holes or have stains on them. I’ll work around those so they are not included, there are many other areas of the item I can use instead.
It’s possible to include whole items in your keepsake blanket. Things like hats, socks, first size babygrow, mittens, ties etc. They can be included in a memory animal depending what the item is, things like headbands & ties.
This mini bear was made with a tutu because one of the outfits included had a tulle skirt attached to it along with a headband.
You don’t have to have done this whole process of sorting through clothing before you place an order. You can place your order then sort through the items afterwards. It’s a good idea if you already know roughly how many items you have to use when placing your order. If you order a smaller size and you find out you want to make it bigger and include more items, that’s completely possible, send me and email and I can arrange to pay the difference in cost.
If you are local to Aylesbury you are more than welcome to drop off clothes and pick up the completed keepsakes instead of posting the clothes to me.