Boxing Day (December 26th) finds me cleaning up from this Christmas and setting myself up for next year. This calls for some upgraded gift wrap organization. I’ve had my current no-frills system for years now and it’s gotten ungainly. I think it’s time I separate my Christmas wrapping stuff from the other holiday wrapping gear.
I saw this Gift Wrap “kit” from The Container Store over at Deliciously Organized (a great new blog find, by the way – I love these girls!) and decided to make the switch. I like that I can have separate spaces for the gift wrap and the ribbon, tape, etc, all in one box. I even splurged on some new rolling scissors. Fancy.
I think this will make next Christmas’ wrapping session less of a pain in the patootie.
Gift Wrap Center from The Container Store
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I learned Peter Walsh’s advice too late: just get a single large roll of wrapping paper–maybe red or just brown kraft paper–and stick with that. Let that be your signature wrapping paper. You can vary the ribbons, or if you go with kraft paper, you can draw, stamp or paint to decorate. No more piles of half-used rolls tumbling out of your closet. Not sure this works when you have little kids or not. Do they care about the paper?
My mother has a medium sized trash can that she uses for her rolls of wrapping paper. It just sits in the garage. Then she keeps a bin of ribbons and tags on a shelf.
Also, not to sound like a killjoy, but the other thing that we do in our house is wrap gifts in cloth. We have a number of leftover pieces of cloth and some thrift store silk scarfs that look really pretty when tied around a small gift–like a book. It’s wrapping and a bow all in one. This works especially well for Hanukkah, where you can re-use your wrapping each night!
I’m totally with you on this, Jennifer. This year, I finally moved toward a more consistent gift wrap choice, using just a nice thick red and brown kraft paper and zotched it up a bit with 3 colors of twine. Looked pretty good, actually.
My sister in law did kraft paper with stamps and she let her 3 yo son help her, so he got to participate in the wrapping. The end result looked excellent, not overly “homey”.
And, the fabric idea? I love it. In fact, I was just over at the Chewing The Cud website where they have some great fabric wrapping ideas. Super eco friendly, but still gorgeous.
Ikea had the BEST wrapping paper this year. All of their patterns were red and white. Huge rolls. Thick paper. And all of the rolls were double-sided! 4 rolls – 8 patterns – green twine – green glitter trees. Sigh. I LOVED wrapping (giving/oohing and ahhing) over the gifts I gave this year. Since I don’t have a large area to store rolls of paper (8 max) – I have to live by the 1 in 1 out rule. Ikea’s paper isn’t overtly xmassy – so it can last for awhile – but with yellow twine
Great tip, Erin! I have to stop by IKEA for a new nightstand for my son, so I’ll check to see if they have any deals on their holiday paper.
This year, I opted for the classic brown paper and then my son (3 1/2) and I decorated each package with Christmas themed stamps in red and green ink. Not only was the gift wrapping wonderfully simple, but my Christmas budget slashed significantly, the activity doubled as a art project and my son learned that giving to others can be a fun-filled process. I think I’ll do something similar next year!