Simple hacks to stow away your Christmas decorations
Snap – and just like that, Christmas is already over again. It comes along so quickly and passes equally as fast. Suddenly, we find ourselves ready to start thinking about decorating our home for the spring season. As the flowers begin to bloom, the Christmas decorations must be out of sight until next year. In our rush to put away the decorations, we often act too hastily with the mindset ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Quickly putting everything in a box, however, means that next year, it is likely you will certainly find an assortment of damaged decorations; a tangled string of lights, broken tree baubles, and broken pieces of the beautiful and treasured angel.
Unfortunately, due to improper treatment, fragile and beautiful pieces are likely to break. Simple tricks with materials that most of us already have in our homes, can help you avoid such situations..
Fairy lights:
It won’t take up much time at all to wind the sets of string lights neatly. The goal is to store the lights so that they don’t get tangled and can be unwound quickly when it comes to getting them out again next Christmas. You can use everyday household objects to do this:
Whether wrapped around a coat hanger, a piece of cardboard or a cardboard roll leftover from wrapping paper, you will end up thanking yourself the following year.
You can use anything as a cardboard piece to wrap the lights around – whether it’s part of a cardboard box or the back of a writing pad. To keep the strings of lights from slipping after you wrap them, we suggest that you cut small incisions in the cardboard where you can hook the strings as you wind them. .
Christmas balls:
Who doesn’t love Christmas baubles, especially when they come in just about every shape and colour!
Christmas decorations can often be purchased as individual items. Most sellers will wrap the glass baubles in tissue paper, which protects them, but not enough. Next time you are shopping for Christmas tree baubles, just ask the staff if they any have cardboard boxes that will fit the decorations that you are buying. Retail stores always get their Christmas baubles delivered in sectioned cardboard boxes and often store this packaging material until after the Christmas season. These boxes are usually the size of a shoebox and are given divisions by cardboard inserts. This means that they are perfect for storage, and there is no need to go out and buy anything extra to store the baubles that you choose to buy.
Egg boxes are also ideal for any smaller baubles that you might need to store!
Furthermore, you can also find divided storage boxes that are specially designed for Christmas tree ornaments. These cardboard boxes have dividers that make storage both practical and space-efficient.
Dividers are generally recommended to avoid friction between the items in storage – especially those Christmas tree baubles that have glitter on them. Therefore, to ensure even better protection for the baubles, use additional felt inserts or tissue paper.
Of course, many suitable storage options involve repurposing, like a standard box with inserts, for instance. Large boxes are also wonderful for storing any cardboard boxes that you might have gotten from the retailer.
Wrapping Paper:
Used wrapping paper is awkward to store because the paper keeps unrolling by itself. To avoid this, in addition to using a simple rubber band, cardboard rolls of toilet paper can be used
Also, there are special storage sets out there available for the wrapping paper rolls. Whether round or square, they can be super useful, with practical features like having an additional compartment for the gift ribbons
Labeling:
Of course, general cardboard boxes are perfectly good for storing any items: Nativity figurines, Christmas angels, etc. Once you start using a lot of cardboard boxes, before sealing them, we recommend using labels for their contents. This means that you will be able to find your items faster when it comes to your next decorating session.