31 days :: day 12- Wrapping & Gift Closet Inventory

Day 13:: Gift Wrapping & Gift Closet Inventories

Today I'd like to share my Gift Closet and my Gift Wrapping storage station. I store them together- both items that I've saved to gift to people, and wrapping supplies to package up said gifty items! I'm sharing the two ways that I've stored my Gift Closet- first is in a storage bin and second is in a hanging shoe/sweater storage piece. Being in the Army, we move around a lot and also we don't ever know how big our next home will be- so our Gift Closet & Wrapping Station is on the smaller side... one day I dream of an entire actual closet for such purposes :)

Now my Gift Closet consists of two main types of items-

• Re-Gifting:: items that I was gifted that weren't quite my style, duplicates of things I already have, raffle items won, free gifts with purchase, etc.
• New:: items that I've bought for a particular person that I'll be gifting at a later date {future birthday, Christmas, etc.}

And it's always good to know what I have and what I've bought so that I don't re-buy something, or go buy something new when I have the perfect gift already in my stash! So here's what I have on the Gift Closet Inventory...

• gift :: short description of the gift
• occasion :: useful if it's occasion-specific {ie. wedding, Christmas, etc} or if I've bought it intentionally for a person for a specific holiday
• from :: who the gift was originally from {useful in the event of re-gifting}
• to :: who a gift might be for if it's a re-gift, or who I intentionally bought the gift for

{ Gift Closet blank inventory }

Up next is my Gift Wrapping Inventory. Now if you're anything like me, you save all boxes, ribbon, and tissue paper that is salvageable. I like to reuse items- both to save me money and to save the environment a bit. So I have a central place to store all my wrapping items. I also need a way to keep track of all the items that I already have... in comes my inventory list!

It's pretty straight forward...

• tissue :: all tissue paper
• boxes/bins :: all gift boxes, also included is any random gift wrap paper or certificate holders... anything that doesn't fit in the other categories I've listed here
• ribbons :: all ribbons and bows

{ Gift Wrapping blank inventory }

dvd storage

So this was our DVD storage... pretty typical. Actually, not even all of it is pictured above. We're movie people, if you didn't already guess ;) Unfortunately, as you can see, we maxed out our storage, so I was faced with a choice- buy another DVD cabinet and figure out where to squeeze it into our living room... or seek out an alternative DVD storage system...

Well it just so happened that recently I had read Kristina's post about her DVD storage {here}. Bingo! That system is what I need!

So enter a few thing things...

{1} Delicious Library 1 software @ $20 {optional}

{2} three clear storage bins @ $7.50 total

{3} a few packs of storage sleeves @ $22 total

{4} a few rolls of tape @ $5ish

And here's what I ended up with! Our VHSs take up half a drawer in our entertainment center.

I scanned the barcode of each DVD with my laptop built-in camera, which enters the DVD into Delicious Library.

Then I cut out the title of each DVD, the rating, and runtime, and also any special features- taped those to the front and back of each sleeve.

Now this ended up costing about $10 more than just buying another storage unit, not to mention it would have saved a LOT of time {it took about 3-4 days of on and off working}, but here are the reasons why this system really works for us, many of which are due to DH being in the Army and thus moving frequently...

{1} SPACE:: we can actually store these DVD bins all in our entertainment center, which gives us two freed up storage units- they now function as a buffet in the dining room!

{2} INSURANCE:: with the frequent moves, we have a higher chance of stuff getting lost. In the event that some DVDs do get lost, with Delicious Library, we now have a full listing of all our DVDs {and books!}

{3} TIME:: with each move, the movers are required to check that each DVD is in its case before they pack them... this takes a while when you have as many movies as we do, not to mention they could easily take a movie or two and claim it's not in the case. Now, all they have to do is peer through the clear sleeve front and make sure there's a disc in each sleeve!

{4} LISTS:: now I am a list person! I must have my DVDs alphabetized, but usually DH and I will be in the mood for an "action" flick or "comedy" but not have a specific movie in mind. So I often wished I could have my DVDs arranged by genre, but then what do you do about say "romantic comedies" which fit into two categories? This is where Delicious Library comes in again- I have "shelves" set up within my library, where I just drag and drop a movie title into a "shelf" {aka. a list} and so now I have a Comedy shelf, Romance shelf, Action shelf, etc. and each movie can be put on multiple shelves. Perfect! Best of both worlds- I have my alphabetizing but also my genre lists available at a click of a button :)

Keep in mind, you can always skip buying the software, which cuts the cost almost in half... and you could skip cutting out all the titles and movie info which would cut out much of the time involved with how I did it!!

I made some simple tags to show which titles are in which bin... A through J, K through R, and S through Z. The numeric ones are in the very front, but I didn't add that to the tags :)

I'll show you what I did with all the no longer needed DVD cases in another post, so stay tuned ;)

.: linking up to :.

I'm an Organizing Junkie

Show Me What Ya Got @ Not Just a Housewife

Organizing Mission Monday @ Organize with Sandy

My Crafty Weekend @ Until Wednesday Calls

Inspire Me Monday @ Singing Three Little Birds

All Things Inspired @ All Things Heart and Home

Catch A Glimpse @ A Glimpse Inside

We're Organized Wednesday @ Organize and Decorate Everything

metamorphasis tea

.: BEFORE :.

So, imagine, if you will, three kitchen cabinet shelves full of boxes and tins of tea, stacked and crammed in whatever way they can fit, haphazardly shoved in wherever there's room.... well, that was my cabinet. I didn't get to take a photo, unfortunately, but trust me, it was ugly!

.: AFTER :.

What you now see before you (well, below, really) is our newly revamped kitchen cabinet! We have a TON of tea. Both DH and I love us some tea, pretty much every kind of tea too, so between us, we have a boatload of tea. So, let me take you on a tour....

Yup, that's our cabinet! I'm a bit proud, I'll be honest :) And it's been that way for over a month now, so I'm quite pleased that it's withstood the test of time. I think that's the real organizational test... if you can actually maintain the organization, then that's a pretty good bet that it's a GOOD organization method :)

Anyhoo... I started by emptying out the cabinet. It covered about half of our counter, and we have a fair amount of counter space! I'd been saving the clear plastic containers that we get our bulk foods in, and they came in quite handy when redoing this space. Our very top shelf (only pictured above) has our surplus boxes of tea {usually I'll grab one of those boxes when we travel and toss it in my bag} and our hot chocolate tins. Then the middle shelf....
We have four plastic containers that fit perfectly around the lil white wire shelf. The top two containers hold my green and black teabags. The bottom two containers hold my white and red tea bags. Then there's two tea tins {please note the "Official Unbirthday Tea"- it's an Alice in Wonderland themed tin from Disney, hehe, it's a green tea, love it!}. You can see in the first photo that there's also some more tins and boxes off to the right. They're less frequently used and stacked nicely, so I decided to leave them be.... then we move to the bottom shelf....

I've had these lil containers floating around doing various jobs throughout the years. They're per-fect for holding tea bags! Just the right size- love it! The left two containers are all DH's teas. The right container has "our teas" {ones that we both like}- Numi's puerh teas and Tazo's Passion tea, an herbal fruity tea.

My favorite tea? Well it's actually in a tin on the counter. It's Wegman's loose leaf decaf British Breakfast. I usually have a least one {if not a few cups} a day, so it gets a special place of prominence outside of the cabinet.... ok, so it's not really a "special" place, it's wedged in between the sugar canisters and the utensil holder, but point being, it's out all the time since I use it so much ;) Anyhoo, I hope you enjoyed our journey along my tea cabinet. Thanks for reading, hehe!

.: linking up here :.

Metamorphasis Monday @ Between Naps on the Front Porch

Whatever Goes Wednesday @ Someday Crafts

All Things Inspired @ All Things Heart And Home

Get Organized Party: Kitchen @ Domestically Speaking

Operation Organization @ Sassy Sites

Simplify for the New Year @ A Home Made by Kiki