Packing and organizing for back to college... still

I am still buried in packing bins (plastic boxes from Walmart), Ikea Bags, and Space saver bags.  My daughter asked me to help her organize her belongings, but at the same time, she is also calling me anal retentive. The good news is with careful packing, unpacking becomes a breeze as the items are organized intuitively and can just be slid into drawers or set in it's appropriate place.

This is all of the hanging clothes I am sending
out... less than half from last years amount,
even though she has twice the closet space.

The hardest part is preventing her from bringing all of her clothing to college.  So I insisted on X number of pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, etc... enough clothes to last 3 weeks, which is plenty if you do laundry twice a month.  I put each type of clothing in either a dress bag, or rolled it military style and put it in a space bag, then in a bin (all the non hanging clothes fit in one bin!)

Then there are the bins for all the other stuff.

• One for stationary, books, and crafts. 
• One for organizers, hooks, cords, and tools needed to set up the room
• One for shoes... (there are also shopping bags for boots)

Then there are a couple of drawer storage units:

• One for food and kitchen items
• One for toiletries. 

And then random odds and ends include

• A makeup train 
• A first-aid case (plastic makeup  train case that wasn't being used)
• An art case

Then the big items

• storage chest....  not necessary, but I agreed to it for sentimental reasons.  It also holds all bedding and towels (after I vacuumed them into Space Bags)
• A standing floor screen... another completely unnecessary item. 

The the Ikea bags will hold

• loose odds and ends. pillows, giant robe, a large pirate hat (don't ask)
• and wall art, that I made over the summer from her pile of theatre t-shirts. 

And we had to borrow my in-laws big SUV to make it work as all this stuff would not fit into my medium size mom-mobile.

 I realize this packing list sounds absolutely insane... or at least it does to me when looking back at what I brought to college... one large trunk and one Extra large laundry bag... but most kids fill two cars of odds and ends for the trek (if they live within 3 hours of the school).  These who live far away take less, but have things shipped, and buy over the year, and use storage for consecutive years.

And then there's the fact that I really enjoy doing this type of organizing.  Son might let me organize a little the day before he goes... we'll see.

Note: I purchased everything on this list myself, and no one paid me to review any items.  The images contain links to these items to Amazon.