The drawers are sort of deep--it's one of those cheap, assemble-it-yourself 4-drawer dressers. sort of like this one, but probably cheaper.

The inside of the drawers is about 5 or 6 inches deep. I cut a piece of manilla folder to be as wide as the dresser is call, and I use it to fold the shirt around, so i get the right width. (though by now I can eyeball it).

Then I stand the rolled-up shirts in this drawer organizer of rigid diamonds.

Some shirts take up a whole cubby; some shirts are small enough to share. Sweaters and some long-sleeved shirts don't work--but they're not such a horrendous problem because I can only get 3 to 5 of them in a stack in the drawers anyway, unlike T-shirts and the like, which end up about 6 to 8 deep. (plus, DD doesn't wear many long-sleeved shirts; she hates them).

And the drawer is generally tidy. Certainly not like it was when she had stacks, and then she'd want one that was 3 or 4 shirts down, and all the shirts on top would come out too, and she'd just stuff them back in.....

The little cubbyholes keep the shirts from sliding over or falling over--the plastic sides are tall enough for that.

I've been using this system for about 4 years, maybe longer, and I'm still really happy w/ it. When she was little, I could fold her shirts in half; now I have to fold them in thirds. (she's a size 12 now).

Talley Sue, What a fabulous idea! I have seen those dividers and always wondered about them....my DD sounds just like yous! I shall be looking forward to trying this. I have labelled each of her drawers; eg -house tshirts, house skirts, good tshirts, summer pj's, and so on. This works well however the tshirts do end up quite messy when the one she is looking for ALWAYS seems to be down near the bottom :) Thanks for this great idea.

I was thinking about Talley's system. My 9 yo daughter is a fashion disaster! I use to keep her tops in one drawer, jeans in the second drawer and so on. Of course the drawer with the tops was always a mess. This year we have started putting the entire outfit together in the drawers. Top and bottom, socks and panties. I put some of her jeans away until it gets cooler, but now she always has 12 outfits ready for her to grab without any thinking. It's so nice to put her clothing away and not feel like I have to refold anything.

Gloria

Gloria, my DD, at about the age of 8, was picking horrible color combos, etc. And she had clothes she wouldn't let me get rid of but wouldn't wear, etc.

So I told her that for the first half of the summer, *I* would pick her outfits. And if she refused to wear one of them when I picked it, we would toss it. Over the course of that month, several people commented on how nicely she was dressed (honest, it was spontaneous, at least when *other* people did it). At the end of the month, I told her it was now her job.

She asked me how I went about picking an outfit that looked nice, and I realized she was truly at a loss. So I told her, "first pick a bottom--shorts, skort, whatever--and then pick a top that matches."

I do like the idea of prepackaging an outfit--that's one of the prinicples behind those vertical clothes sorters that hang from the closet rod. (though that takes up a lot of space.