Feb

7 Easy Steps for Organized Holiday Storage

By admin

Would not it be nice if you could find your decorations, costumes, cards and wrapping paper in just seconds and put
them away just as quickly after the holiday? You can with a plan! Use these steps below for organizing holiday storage
and you will spend less time on this mundane task and more time celebrating. And do not wait until the holidays, or
worse, after the holidays, to read these tips. Thats too late. Plan ahead. Start now. Start here…

STEP #1: COLOR CODE STORAGE BOXES. You can buy holiday storage bins, or even ordinary plastic storage bins, in
different colors. Or buy containers with different color lids. Or spray paint the exterior of your existing lids
appropriate colors. Use all purple for Halloween ornaments and all green and red for Christmas items. That way you will
know at a glance which storage bins to pull for each holiday.

STEP #2: TAKE INVENTORY. List each item in an individual holiday storage container on a sheet of paper. Then put that
paper in a translucent sheet protector. Tape the sheet protector to the outside of the bin. You would not have to open
each box now to know What is inside.

STEP #3: MAKE A BLUEPRINT. Have you ever struggled to repack decorations into boxes only to find what came out does not
seem to fit on the return trip? Solve this by mapping the location of the items in the boxes in blueprint drawing
fashion. Of course you will have to get everything to fit just so in the boxes the first year. But next year you will
easily be able to duplicate the repacking process by following your packing blueprint.

STEP #4: USE A CODING SYSTEM on holiday storage boxes that tells you in what order to open them. Put the number one on
the box that contains the items you will work with first. Or write open first on certain boxes. For example, at
Christmas you may typically start with your tree stand, tree lights and/or outdoor lights. Other things you might use
first are holiday cooking related items (e.g. Santa or pumpkin cookie cutters), gift wrap and gift tags. Keep other
boxes closed until you are ready for those items.

STEP #5: CLUSTER. Two columns of stackable bins that are all orange (for Halloween) in the back corner of your garage
are easy to spot. Always group storage boxes together by holiday, even if you can not fit all of the holidays in the
same section of the garage, attic or closet.

STEP #6: KEEP A HOLIDAY PLANNER. Keep one three-ring notebook with the inventory sheets mentioned earlier. (This can
be in addition to taping the inventory sheets to the individual storage boxes.) You can put all holiday inventory
sheets in one notebook and separate the different holiday information with notebook dividers and tabs (sold at office
supply stores) labeled Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.

Keep the notebook on your bookshelf year-round. You also can add divided sections to this notebook for holiday
recipes, holiday collection lists (so you do not buy duplicate collectibles in a series), holiday gift ideas and
holiday card mailing lists.

it is best to do all of these printables on your computer and print them versus hand-writing them; that makes for
easier updating. You can either put the paper in three-hole punched translucent sheet protectors or leave a wide left
margin and three hole punch the paper yourself.

STEP #7: START NOW. Work on your storage plan through every upcoming holiday so that when year two arrives, your plan
is in place and complete. it is an investment of time and patience that will benefit you next year and every year
thereafter.

Originally posted 2009-07-20 23:12:09. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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