Tag Archives: wardrobe weeding

New Year, New Closet

Confidence, Personal Style, ,

Every garden needs to be weeded on a regular basis, but there are times when it needs a complete tilling.  Your closet is no different. If you have been staying up on your wardrobe, discarding, giving and removing items that do not suit your style, then you may not need to join us in our complete clean out today. 

If you have had a major change in your lifestyle, climate, size or simply a new awakening of who you are, then you may want to follow the steps we are taking in our Supreme MakeOver Course. 

Complete Closet Clean Out

We have been going through our wardrobe and wearing every item we can, creating as many complete outfits as we can with what we already have. 

We have been saying goodbye to items that simply do not fit right, have worn out, bring us bad memories, or suck the confidence out of us in any way. 

We now know our personal Image Identity (Img.ID) and the guidelines we should follow in order to look our best, and we are ready to swap with each other clothing that simply does not suit us well for ones that do. 

General guidelines for your Img.ID:

  • C: (The Classic) fashion trends (not fads) matching accessories.
  • N: (The Natural) simplicity with texture.
  • D: (The Dramatic) straight lines, high fashion, Accessories.
  • I: (The Ingénue) light, fine and feminine fabrics.
  • R: (The Romantic) rich, flowing, feminine fabrics.
  • G: (The Gamine) strong, bold color & fabrics

Click the letter to learn more about that Image Identity, including What2Wear.

Take the Personal Image Identity Quiz

Your Closet Clean Out could take you as little as one hour, it could take you all day, but there will be a great return on the time you invest because from here on, every morning will be easier and you will feel much more confident all day, everyday, knowing your image is reflecting your authentic self. 

To prepare, clear off your bed, you are going to need it to make your piles as you continue to pull out anything left in your closet (this includes dressers that may be in your room).

If you haven’t already, be sure to get all that laundry from step one (see last blog) washed and dried. 

Bring back to your room ONLY items you will keep.  

Continue to REMOVE any and all items (clothing or not) from every part of your wardrobe one drawer, shelf, section at a time. Try on each item and find pieces to make an outfit and make the decision: is it a THROW AWAY,  GIVE AWAY, or LAY AWAY (keep for another season, size, place)?

Place all “keepers” on your bed. 

Remember, you are weeding anything that does not give you confidence. You are not wasting anything, you are sharing those good items with someone else who will enjoy it more.

Once your closet and dressers are completely empty, vacuum and wipe down everything, top to bottom. Next, go find your husband and tell him: “look, honey, I have NOTHING to wear!” While he’s there, it may be a good time to ask him what his favorite outfits of yours are.  Then follow these steps:

  • Start by taking your favorite base items (usually slacks, shorts or skirts) and trying on all tops that could possibly work with that base piece., completing the outfit to the best of your ability with what you have, including accessories
  • Make a list of anything needed  to complete that outfit. Suggestion: take a selfie to help you remember, bring it with you to look back at when shopping. I find this especially helpful for matching colors. 
  • Next, purposefully put each outfit away (organize as you feel best: by color, type, outfit) until you have enough complete outfits for your lifestyle.  As you go along decorate the closet to make it peaceful and inspiring by hanging purses, scarves, mirrors, etc.

Continue this process until everything on your bed has found a place.  If there are items left that go with nothing you own, either give them away or take them shopping with you.  Don’t return them to your closet until you find something you can wear them with or they will quickly cause the clutter and confusion you just worked so hard to weed out.  

Finally, REMOVE all excess clothing (weeds!) from your house.

Now take some time to enjoy your beautiful garden and celebrate your new found freedom! I’d love to hear how you did. Comment, share, post pics of your progress. May your new year be full of confidence and beauty!

As an author and speaker, my passion is in helping women and girls overcome confidence conflicts, especially those involving rejection, betrayal and loss. After 30 years in the beauty industry as both a cosmetologist and an image consultant, I love to use my profession, along with my experiences and training as a Biblical life-coach to help others struggling. If you want to make difference, too, would you help share this blog and connect with me on Facebook, Twitter,  Pinterest, Linked In, Goodreads 

Get Catrina’s Books on Amazon

End of the Year Closet Challange

Confidence, Personal Style, , ,

Imagine walking through a well groomed garden. Smell the colorful flowers and feel the gentle breeze calm your heart. Allow the beauty to inspire peace in your heart as you walk along, while the dew is still on the roses. Perhaps this is a place to find God Himself. 

Now consider a garden that is overgrown and unkept. The paths are crowded with out of control bushes, the blossoms are wilting and withered and the clutter of weeds persuade quite an opposite affect on your heart.

No peace. Distraction. Overwhelm. 

Your closet is like a garden. 

In which type of garden would you prefer to start your day? 

No matter the size or shape of your closet, it, too, can be an inspiring sanctuary or it can be a overgrown and chaotic: full of unused, worn-out, mismatched clothing that chokes the confidence out of your day right from the start!

Closets must be cared for

Life is busy– especially this time of year. With all the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping and going to events, your closet may likely be chaotic like mine right now.  For most of us, the only space (besides the bathroom) in our house where no one else is allowed to enter without permission, is our closet. This makes it a perfect place to hide things we don’t don’t know what to do with or don’t have time to put away before company arrives. It is also a great place to hide Christmas gifts. 

Christmas should be the season to seek peace and pursue it, yet with a cluttered closet, it’s easy to start the day frustrated over finding something to wear.  I don’t know about you, but my closet is no longer a sanctuary. I can nearly move amongst the “overgrowth.”

It’s time for a wardrobe weeding!

First step to creating a Confident Closet

I know the week of Christmas is not really the time of year to focus on self or take on a big project, but right after the celebrations is a great time to prepare the way for the new year.  Would you join me in a simple, step by step plan in weeding, cultivating and planting a Confident Closet?  

STEP ONE:  Enjoy what you have.

This is a time of giving, not a time to be longing for more, so in the spirit of Christmas, begin to WEAR EVERYTHING you already own. Put together as many complete (including accessories) outfits as you can. For now, just enjoy what you have and listen to what each outfit says. Notice how you feel the day you wear it. Is it “you”? Does it fit well? Is it in good condition?

If it makes you feel confident, then take a selfie or describe it in writing for future reference. 
If there are items that make you feel self-conscious, uncomfortable or phony; or if anything stirs up ugly emotions, Quickly GIVE AWAY, THROW AWAY or LAY AWAY that item.

After you wear an outfit, do not return it to your closet, in fact, don’t even wash it. This is a great week to let the laundry pile up. Instead of washing clothes, wrap a gift.

That’s all for now, we will get to the laundry next year.

Stay tuned for step two in my next blog. Be sure to join my email list to have it sent directly to your inbox.  If you have friends you want to do this with, please share this with them. 

Learn your personal Image Identity
Catrina Welch has been helping others with their image for more than 30 years. As a licensed cosmologist, certified image consultant and Biblical life-coach, she is well aware that image issues are far more difficult for some styles than they are for others. After her first husband left her while pregnant, she learned first hand that the greatest antidote to Confidence Conflicts is to know who you are, including your personal image identity. She developed a systematic way of doing image assessments for large groups, which she calls a “Supreme MakeOver.” Catrina is the author of five books, including “Confident Beauty: Reflecting the One Who Made You, with the Images in your Mirror and in your Soul.” She is the mother of four children. Catrina and Ron, her husband of twenty-six years, live on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and are now raising their first grandchild. For more information about Supreme MakeOvers or having Catrina speak at your next event, email her at catrina@catrinawelch.com
get Catrina’s books

Preparing for your Closet Audit

Beauty, Confidence, Personal Style, , , , ,

judge judyIf you are a business owner, you know how vital an audit is to your success. It’s important to assess the finances, inventory and/or policies that a company holds in order to avoid tragic mistakes.  I help my husband with his company’s insurance audits twice a year; it used to scare me to death because I really had no idea what I was doing. I felt like all the intimidating questions were geared at judging my record keeping, I was doing Ronny’s books out of love and convenience–the only qualification I had was in my pay-grade! The interrogation made me feel like a fraud until I began really understanding his business and what I needed to do for him. Insurance audits are not accusations like tax audits can be. Instead they are about fine-tuning the coverage you have so that it represents you well.

Kind of like a wardrobe assessment or “closet audit.”

I’ve done a lot of image consultations over the years, but seldom do I get invited into a home to do a “wardrobe weeding” unless the client is truly in a total transition or already quite confident and aspiring for excellence. It seems to me that most women feel like I did in the early years with my auditors. Its hard to evaluate what you have until you are sure of who you are.

Right now I am preparing for our workman’s compensation audit. I’ve gone through my reports and made sure nothing is missing. I’m ready to face what used to feel like judgment with the confidence of knowing IT IS WHAT IT IS. If things need changing we will change them–I don’t take it personally anymore. I know it’s more about tweaking our business to keep up with all the changing insurance laws than it is about me. It’s a bit like keeping up with the changes in fashion.

If you are ready to tweak your image so that you are properly represented, be sure to follow this series of coming blogs. Wednesday I will guide you through a closet audit and helping you answer questions like my auditor asks me:

 What kind of work do you do? 

What kind of coverage do you need? 

To be well prepared, take these next few days to be sure your laundry is caught up so that your favorite items are available for assessment when we consider:

What do you already have that is working well for you? 

In later blogs we will go over wardrobe weeding:

Does anything need tweaking so that it can be used again this year? 

What do you want to get rid of?

And then building a confident closet:

What needs to be purchased?

*****

Catrina Welch is an inspirational author and speaker. As an image- and life-coach, her message is not simply What2Wear, it is also Know Who You Are. She uses her personal experience with overcoming rejection, betrayal and loss and her expertise as a cosmetologist, image consultant and Biblical life-coach to help empower women to BE and LET BE.

Her latest book, CONFIDENT BEAUTY: Reflecting the One Who Made You, with the Images in your Mirror and in your Soul, is now available in your favorite bookstores. Autographed copies of all her books are available on her website at www.CatrinaWelch.com