Be it on anniversaries, birthdays or festivals, gift bags keep finding their way into your home throughout the year. And it’s always difficult to get rid of the extra gift bags because, let’s be real, they are expensive. And instead of throwing them away, you find it better to reuse them during the next festive season. But as useful as these excess gift bags can turn out to be in future, it’s important to figure out how many gift bags are too many.
The idea to save up gift bags for future use is great as it allows you to save money that would have otherwise gone into buying new ones. But when the pile of gift wraps and gift bags that has been accumulated through the years becomes too much to handle, the only option that sounds feasible is to declutter them before they make your house look like a huge stash of gift wrap clutter.
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If you want to know the extent to which you need to declutter the gift bags in your house, start by designating a specific storage space to them. It can be a small drawer, a section of your cupboard or even an entire cabinet depending on how big your living space is and how often you send out gifts to your near and dear ones.
Here are some very simple decluttering tips that will help you sort through the excess gift bags and gift wraps in less than hour:
1. Gather All The Gift Bags In One Place
The best way to start decluttering your gift bags is to bring them all together in one place that can be called a workstation. Take a tour of your house and pick every gift bag or gift wrap lying around. Look inside the bedroom cupboards and drawers, kitchen cabinets, in the bed box and the dressers. Gathering every piece of gift bag lying around in your house will help you get a clear picture of what you need to go through.
2. Trash Or Recycle The Torn Bags
You hold on to so many gift bags because you want to reuse them during the next festive season or for other gifting purposes. But gift bags that are torn or ripped cannot be reused. It’s only wise if you get rid of these unusable pieces right in the beginning. You can either recycle or trash any bags that aren’t ideal for regifting purposes while keeping the remaining ones to be sorted through later.
3. Look For The Ones That Are A Definite Yes
Now that you have gotten rid of the gift bags that are not usable, what remains is a pile of the ones that are in perfect shape and can be reused. They may be of varied sizes, colours and are suitable for different occasions throughout the year. Some of these gift bags will be visibly beautiful making you want to reuse them as soon as an occasion arrives. So take a storage bin and put these definitely usable gift bags in it. Make sure you don’t keep any item that you are doubtful about or that you don’t like or intend to use again.
4. Deal With The Maybe Items
In the pile that now remains, you will find items that you don’t like or that don’t meet any of your gifting requirements. Maybe they are too fancy or too simple to be used for gifting purposes. But you don’t want to trash them away because they look good.
A lot of these ‘maybe’ gift bags can be used for other purposes in your house. You can use them to carry the items that you intend to take to the thrift store for reselling. Although these extra gift bags aren’t useful to you, they can be of use to someone from your friends or family. Ask them if they need some. Many people like to use some of the sturdy gift bags to carry groceries or just to store stuff in their house. You can also donate these bags to someone who may need them. We recently gave away a lot of the excess gift bags to our house help to uses them to carry her lunch.
How To Store Gift Bags
Decluttering gift bags isn’t enough. You need to store them properly in order to avoid creating a mess. Make sure that you only hang on to the number of gift bags that is just enough to meet your gifting requirements for the next one year or so. Here are a few great storage solutions to store and organize your collection of gift bags and gift wraps:
1. A Sturdy Waste Can – This sturdy waste can is perfect for small homes and has enough space to store gift wrapping paper and gift bags. This bin is stable enough to stand without falling every minute of the day.
2. Hanging Gift Bag Storage Organizer – This gift bag organizer is a great space-saving option as you can just hang it on the wall by the hook. You can use it to store gift bags, tissue papers and gift-wrapping paper without any fear of damaging them.
3. Wrapping Paper Organizer – I have been using this wrapping paper storage organizer for so long that I don’t feel comfortable using anything else to store my gift bags and gift wraps. It also has flexible partitions and pockets to prevent the items from colliding and getting damaged. And it can be used to store a lot of your gifting accessories – ornaments, ribbons, gift tags, etc.
4. A Tiered Desk Organizer – Desk organizers, though ideally used for organizing magazines and newspapers, can prove to be a great storage solution for your gift bags. You can simply use the multiple sections of this organizer to sort your gift bags based on their colors and sizes.
Are you ready to start decluttering the gift bags in your house? If yes, don’t forget to go through these tips again before you get going. Though gift bags may not sound like too big a source of clutter, decluttering them will leave a huge positive impact on your home that will motivate you to do it on a regular basis.
So keep decluttering!