Gift wrap closet is an awesome sight!
So you'd think after not writing on my blog for almost two months I'd come up with something more riveting. Sorry - is what is.
The day after Christmas is one of my very favorite days of the year - no lists, no obligations, leftovers available for anyone who thinks they need to eat today. And I get to clean up some of the mess that is everywhere I look, making me twitch just a bit.
About mid-December I pull out everything a body needs to wrap a gift, and ship it if necessary: boxes, labels, packaging, tape, paper, ribbons, tags, paper and tissue. It sits in a corner of the kitchen, available for anyone to dive into. After a couple of weeks it begins to take on a life all its own. My husband tends to wait til one or two days before Christmas to wrap his gifts, so it generally has to sit there til the very end - December 24, 10:30 pm.
But on December 26th I can put it all away, back in the closet where it belongs. This year (maybe because I got 8 hours of sleep last night) I decided to pull the rest of it all out of the closet - all the gift wrap stuff, not just Christmas, and put it all back in.
I didn't think to take a before photo - should have since it was a bit of a fright, but here's what I ended up with:
Notice that I didn't get completely anal about it - didn't type labels, or spend money to buy boxes that all match in size. I just went with what I had. (I might work on that later, but right now it's the big picture - get it cleaned up and put away.)
It's at the end of my husband's closet - the one that holds his dress clothes, in our guest bedroom. So the shelves were already there. I threw out a 13 gallon size trash bag of ugly tags, wrinkled tissue and paper, boxes too big to ship or wrap, and now I can find exactly what I need to wrap a gift for any occasion, or to ship a box to someone. There's a stand up gift wrap organizer just beyond this photo that holds all my gift wrap. I'm starting to go with paper that can be used for just about any occasion - black and white polka dots, pink chevron, that sort of thing. Eventually we'll use up the others I've accumulated over the years and get that down to a few rolls.
Simple stuff but makes my little heart sing. Next is moving my craft closet supplies from downstairs bedroom to the upstairs one; that one might need more than 8 hours of sleeping before I dive into it.
We still haven't celebrated our Gibson family Christmas (this Friday), but after that I'll come back and share the gifts I made, and our favorite photos of the season. Merry Christmas everyone!
P.S. Please don't judge me - the bin says 'Xmas', not Christmas because it wouldn't fit in that spot, and I'm not a purist about it anyway - I'm thinking 'Xmas' stands for Christmas in some way that I can't remember and makes it okay.
P.S.S. Please also don't judge me for the number of Amazon boxes one might see. We live in the boonies so Amazon is my best friend these days. Soon as we move back amongst people we'll be back at the mall, big box stores, bookstores, etc.
The day after Christmas is one of my very favorite days of the year - no lists, no obligations, leftovers available for anyone who thinks they need to eat today. And I get to clean up some of the mess that is everywhere I look, making me twitch just a bit.
About mid-December I pull out everything a body needs to wrap a gift, and ship it if necessary: boxes, labels, packaging, tape, paper, ribbons, tags, paper and tissue. It sits in a corner of the kitchen, available for anyone to dive into. After a couple of weeks it begins to take on a life all its own. My husband tends to wait til one or two days before Christmas to wrap his gifts, so it generally has to sit there til the very end - December 24, 10:30 pm.
But on December 26th I can put it all away, back in the closet where it belongs. This year (maybe because I got 8 hours of sleep last night) I decided to pull the rest of it all out of the closet - all the gift wrap stuff, not just Christmas, and put it all back in.
I didn't think to take a before photo - should have since it was a bit of a fright, but here's what I ended up with:
It's at the end of my husband's closet - the one that holds his dress clothes, in our guest bedroom. So the shelves were already there. I threw out a 13 gallon size trash bag of ugly tags, wrinkled tissue and paper, boxes too big to ship or wrap, and now I can find exactly what I need to wrap a gift for any occasion, or to ship a box to someone. There's a stand up gift wrap organizer just beyond this photo that holds all my gift wrap. I'm starting to go with paper that can be used for just about any occasion - black and white polka dots, pink chevron, that sort of thing. Eventually we'll use up the others I've accumulated over the years and get that down to a few rolls.
Simple stuff but makes my little heart sing. Next is moving my craft closet supplies from downstairs bedroom to the upstairs one; that one might need more than 8 hours of sleeping before I dive into it.
We still haven't celebrated our Gibson family Christmas (this Friday), but after that I'll come back and share the gifts I made, and our favorite photos of the season. Merry Christmas everyone!
P.S. Please don't judge me - the bin says 'Xmas', not Christmas because it wouldn't fit in that spot, and I'm not a purist about it anyway - I'm thinking 'Xmas' stands for Christmas in some way that I can't remember and makes it okay.
P.S.S. Please also don't judge me for the number of Amazon boxes one might see. We live in the boonies so Amazon is my best friend these days. Soon as we move back amongst people we'll be back at the mall, big box stores, bookstores, etc.
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