December 07th, 2023

I don't know how it works at your house, of course, but at our house, the stuff necessary to wrap gifts is all over the dang place.   The tape and scissors of course are carefully hidden on my desk so that they do not get lost.  I am happy to lend them out whenever someone needs them, but I prefer them to be returned directly to me so that I can put them where they belong.  That way I am positive where they are when I need them next.

Ribbons starts out all nice and neat and tidy on their little cardboards rolls but as soon as I open the package and use it, it's like the thread in my sewing box. Ishkabibble!  It's a tangled mess which I shove into a plastic shopping bag.  It looks a little like those permanent tangles of tree lights. The bows, which I buy cheapcheap usually at the dollar store come in a huge cellophane bag.  Once opened, the cellophane is fairly useless (and it tears if you look at it too hard) so the bows are transferred to a plastic shopping bag.  The two shopping bags are stuffed into an underbed storage container.

This container usually also holds all previously used but still in good shape wrapping material such as gift bags, untorn wrapping paper (carefully smoothed and folded), bows, tissue paper (also carefully smoothed and folded) and any other bits and pieces that I've collected through the year.   Whatever doesn't fit (and there is always stuff that doesn't fit) like various sized boxes, the remainder is yet another plastic shopping bag (do I get points for upcycling?) and the whole thing is put anywhere it fits.  And that's everything.

Well all of it except the actual rolls of wrapping paper!   The rolls do not fit the underbed storage box dang it.  So those get tucked into the back corners of various closets where they slowly somehow start to unwrap themselves (the ones that have been already opened I mean).  They fray a little on the edges and get creases and collect dust but basically it seemsto work ok.  Or at least it worked until the kittyboys came to live here.  They found the wrapping paper rolls and fell instantly in love.  While we were blissfully snoozing in the night, they were shredding and tearing and frolicking with paper!  The least amount of damage were some light fang marks.  Sigh.

So this year on my annual stop at the dollar store, we bought 3 new rolls of paper, rescued as much as possible from one other roll (the rest were too damaged to save) and I vowed to keep everything in the guest room closet AND keep that door closed at all times!  Which is super easy to say but less easy to do.  Y'see, we actually use that closet.

This is a small house and storage is always at a premium.  The floor steamer and the vacuum cleaner are in that closet as is my Pilates mat and ball. We keep our jackets and wintery clothes in there too.  Which is to say that particular closet door gets opened every single day at least once, usually far more often.  And sometimes I forget.  My bad. 

 So in short,  I suppose even though my methodology is messy, it's the system we have been using for gift wrap storage.  And it mostly works. Sort of. Usually. Sometimes.

Well, earlier this week, Tim surprised me with a wonderous thing!  New Storage made specifically for wrapping paraphernalia!  Be still my beating heart.  I am in love!~

​First of all, the wrapping paper rolls fit!  Withh room to spare!  Shocking!

And there is plenty of room leftover for ribbons, bows and other random wrapping related stuff! Woohoo!  

Tim also ordered these:

Do you recognize these?  You may have to think a number of years back but.....I'm pretty sure you know what they are.  Ok, does this help?

Slapbands!  Remember those?  Kids drove adults crazy with them.  They were awesome.  What does that have to do with gift wrap stuff you ask?  Well here you go:

It keeps the wrapping paper rolls closed!  Brilliant!  Love this!  

I was so happy to  fill this storage container up!  It all fit.  Every single bit of it fits!  So tickled with this.  Once it was zippered closed the next question was where on earth was I going to keep it?  Once again, the guest room was the answer. It fits just a sweet as can be under the bed:

Colour me happy!  Clearly Tim knows the secret to keeping me happy.  Storage Solutions!  Now I'm excited about wrapping gifts!  And I know the kittyboys will be overjoyed to help.  Oh dear.  That's a whole other disaster waiting to happen.   They want to help me do everything I do!  Recently when I was making biscuits, Brysco kept trying to get up on the counter top to help me.  I would put him down, he would jump back up whereupon he sniffed the recipe, the flour container (which made him sneeze) and the box of baking powder.  Then he knocked the measuring spoons on the floor.  

"Brysco" I said patiently, "This recipe does not call for fur.  You gotta get down"  So I put him on the floor and he jumped back up on the counter over and over.  Finally we compromised and he sat in the barstool chair and watched.  

They are like this with everything we do all day long.  Most of the time it's not a huge issue, usually it's actually fun.  But somehow I think that helping wrap Christmas gifts isn't going to be one of the fun ones.  Funny, yes, fun no.  Useful no.  Helpful, no.

But that'll be the topic of some future post, I'm sure.

In the meantime, I am DELIGHTED with my wrapping stuff storage box!  Woohoo!  Thank you Tim!