Organizing Holiday Gift Wrap

As part of my post-Christmas organization, I decided to sort through all the gift wrap I had made a huge mess of during Christmas.  My first attempt at organizing my gift wrap, I moved it out of my craft room and into the basement. That freed up a lot of space in my room, but it really wasn't handy in the basement and moving it around wasn't easy. 

I've tried many different ways to store and organize gift wrap.  I saw pictures of this idea while doing some research and it really is simple.  For $1.99 you can find these Variera containers in the kitchen department at Ikea.  I filled them as full as I could with rolls of gift wrap, separating by occasion.  Anything I couldn't fit in these three bins, I sent on to a new home.  I just didn't need to store more than this!  Also, it kept me from buying more after Christmas!

For $6 I was able to store all my rolls tucked safely behind the door.  They come with heavy duty foam tape to attach to the wall, but for now its sturdy enough to stand on its own and I like having the option of moving the bins around easily. While at Ikea, I found these additional baskets.  I'm not sure what they're called, however, they were only $3.99 each!  I thought these would store my gift bags nicely (and perhaps bows/tissue paper as well).

I sorted all the gift bags into two categories, Christmas and Everything Else.  Again, if I couldn't fit it into these two baskets, then I didn't need it.  Larger bags I folded over and they fit fine.  These baskets come with holes, so they can be attached to a wall with screws.  I decided to buy some large command hooks instead and attach them to the side of my cabinet. 

For ribbon, I started out with grand ideas of using a dowel rod and a plastic bin to organize everything in neat little spools.  This worked great, but I ultimately scrapped it because I couldn't fit all the ribbon into one bin. So it looked good, but it was unpractical. And if it's not easy to use, you won't stay organized.   

So what was my grand solution?  I threw everything into a box with a lid.  Same with the tissue paper.  Found some cute boxes at Ikea and problem solved. 

This new gift wrap organization has worked really well. But the key to any organization is getting rid of excess and not buying more. So I no longer buy lots of supplies at those after Christmas sales. Even though it's hard! I only purchase what I can store and nothing more.