Do you have Julie Andrews singing in your head this time of year... "Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things..." Well if you've got gift wrap and presents on the brain, I invite you to peek inside my home gift wrap station
In my upstairs guest bedroom, there are two closets, one of which I used the backs of the doors and turned them into storage for my gift wrap and supplies. We went to Home Depot and got the tracks and basket system and my husband installed it in just under an hour. He's quite handy!
Here on one side of the door, you'll see three baskets. Each one clearly labeled with chalkboard tags. I think these are the cutest labels, but I don't recommend them for everyone. If you rub against them, they easily smudge! But I do like that you can erase them and re-label if needed.
Taking a closer look, the top basket is labeled "All Occasion." You'll see I use a large white gift bag to corral all the different sized gift bags and sacks I have. Everything from Halloween, Birthday, Easter, Valentine's Day and plain bags are kept here. Having them in the plain white bag makes it easier on the eyes and gives it a more organized appearance.
In the middle basket, you'll see the tag reads "Tissue & Ribbon." Spools of curling ribbon, string and twine are kept here as well as a plastic document holder that I stash all my tissue paper. You'll notice a blue pencil box in the front that contains markers for decorating cards and craft scissors that cut various edges (ie; scalloped, zig-zag, etc) for cutting out tags. As an add-on, I purchased the smaller wire basket that you see hanging from the front that I use to store the scissors and tape for easy access and I keep some pens clipped on the side to quickly sign cards or write notes.
Lastly, the bottom basket marked "Xmas" holds the Christmas wrapping. There are gift bags, holiday snack sacks, and a small maroon-colored accordion folder that holds my holiday return address labels, stamps and to/from stickers. The brown paper bag you see on the right holds bows.
On the opposite door, is the spot I keep my "Gift Wrap" rolls. They didn't have quite what I was looking for at the store so we rigged up this arrangement. You'll see we used a row of hooks at the bottom and the tubes sit on the hooks. They're secured to the door at the top with two mini hooks and a long elastic band we looped around to keep them in place. The elastic is actually a hair band - use what you have on hand, right?!
This set-up works really well for me. Given that it's in the closet in a guest room I can spread out over the room and use the bed as my cleared surface for taping and wrapping. As you'll see I don't have a lot of rolls of paper (and I buy generic colors to be used year round), because I am not much of a wrapper. My corners are never crisp and I always end up using too much tape. My preferred method is to stuff things in gift bags. Just plop in a bag, cover with tissue paper, and tie up with a bit of ribbon - easy peasy, lemon squeezy as my son's preschool teacher would say!
These are a few of my favorite things for organizing gift wrapping supplies...
How do you store your gift wrap?
