The Mini Fashionista: How To Have An Insta-Cool Baby & Not Go Broke

If you follow Natural Belle on Instagram then you know that I love to dress Freya up in cute clothes, she is quite the fashionista and have taken over my Instagram with her diva demands and on point shoe game! You can't log into Instagram these days with out seeing some kid looking cuter than you and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm pretty much addicted to baby fashion.
That being said I'm not about to go broke for kids clothes that they can only wear for 6-9 months tops, and if you ever see me purchase a designer handbag for Freya you have permission to punch me in the face!
I'm not Beyonce and Freya is not Blue Ivy, we are average people with an average income so we have to be frugal to be fly. Here are my top tips for having a stylish baby on a budget.

Keep It Simple
Contrary to popular belief Freya does not have a whole bunch of clothes, she has more than she should (due to my shopping addiction) however she doesn't have a crazy amount. If you follow our daily posts you will notice that she wears a lot of the same items just styled differently. We also keep things age appropriate! no crop tops or hair pieces (yes I've seen babies with hair pieces on Instagram) children should look like children not grown people (or strippers).
Top Tips
Keep clothing in the same colour palette, Freya has a lot of black, grey, blue and denim, meaning we can always mix and match outfits everything goes together.

Sales

where possible I refuse to pay full price, especially for baby clothes, my favourite shops to hunt out a sale bargain are Gap, Zara, River Island and Next. I refuse to pay more than £8 for a single item, I love Zara kids clothes however they are on all kinds of crack if they think I'm going to pay £16.99 for a minimalist style vest. So I'm always hunting the sale rail for little gems.

Top Tip

Buy clothes for the next season in the sales, so when the a/w clothes go on sale stock up on coats and boots for the following a/w in larger sizes. When Freya was 3 months old I brought her a coat for age 1-2 and she still wears it now and it was £5!

Don't forget that sales run for a while in the UK, check out the sale near the end of it's run for amazing mark downs, great things can be found in the 'dreg sales'

Think outside the box, the reason something ends up in the sale is because no one wanted it full price. there are some truly ugly clothes in the sales but with a little imagination (and styling) all clothes can look cute when paired with on trend pieces and small person swag!

DIY

Have you seen all those wonderful headbands on Etsy? or the leather Moccasins worn by all those cute babies? well they cost a fortune, and while I don't knock anyone's hustle, with little to no skill you could probably make them yourself at a fraction of the price.

Top Tips

Head to the fabric store and ask for remnants or off cuts, they will usually give you them for free and you can use them to make some awesome DIY hair clips.

Patterns are available to buy online, and with just a small amount of sewing skill you can make dresses and tops for your child, it's also fun! (and addictive)

Gender -Shemder

Shop the boys department, I find that boys clothes are cheaper, and as a mother who is not a huge fan of pink, boys clothes are my saviour from a life of bows and sparkle.

Top Tips

I love the minimalist look for kids, think Scandinavian Minimall, neutral colour palette and no fussy details. however that stuff is expensive. I recreate the look by shopping in the boys department as they tend to have less details on the clothes.

Boys tee's are my favourite thing to purchase I buy them big so Freya can wear them as dresses.

Let Them Be Little

As much as I love dressing up Freya she couldn't care less about what she wears, she is a baby, for now she enjoys dressing up and taking pictures with mummy, it won't last forever so I'm making the most of it. When it comes to Freya's clothes we are all about function and we are not precious about them she gets muddy and covered in food daily (don't let the Instagram feed fool you, I take her pictures early in the morning by mid day she looks like lil kim!) Let your kids be kids.