Outfitting Your Gift and Wrapping Closet

I thought you might like to know what you’d see if you were to peek into my gift closet. So I jotted it down for you.

(And I just had it announced to me here in my family room that this will be post number 300. Wahoo. Thanks everyone for following along!)

My theory on storing gifts: It’s okay to buy gifts that are compact and store easily in your gift closet. In fact, if it stores easily at your house, chances are when you give the gift it will store easily at its new home. And speaking from experience, I love when gifts do that.

You’ll find few more helpful theories in my post about simplifying gift wrap. And now, on with the list.

Everything I Keep in My Gift and Wrapping Closet

Surprises that weigh 13 ounces or less for birthdays
Like tissue birthday crowns, shaped rubberbands, gumballs, fun erasers,cool gadgets and art supplies.

Surprises that weigh 13 ounces or less for get well and thank you gifts
Like bubble blowers, small notebooks, curly straws, and fabric for whipping up a tissue holder.

Baby gifts
Like outfits for 9m and older, baby bling, and favorite gadgets.

Hostess gifts
Clementine syrup, favorite marmalade, homemade vanilla (a lot), real maple syrup (one bottle), and callebaut dark chocolate chunks (from Winco’s bulk section) for melting into hot chocolate on a stick or for dipping things in.

Get well gifts (in my pantry)
All the fixins for homemade granola.

Super cool $5 to $10 gifts
Several rockin’ $5–10 toys to mix and match for sudden birthday events (See all my favorites here). I’ve found this to be the ideal system.
A couple crisp $5 bills and one Borders gift card.

Wrapping
Tissue and crepe paper (my personal fave)
Kraft roll
White paper roll
Glassine bags + envelopes (nothing better for quick, pretty, tiny packages)
Reusable gift bags
Cellophane bags and rolls (for doing this)
Wrapping paper in my color scheme de jour (more about this in my post about simplifying gift wrap)
Fabric drawstring bags I’ve saved
Melamine plates for delivering warm cookies (learned this one from Shanti)

Tags, Labels, and sticky stuff
Contact paper (this stuff rocks my world, see below)
A sticker maker for turning anything into a sticker
Preprinted labels and prepunched tags

Scraps
Fabric and ribbon scraps
Pieces of books, maps, graph paper, security envelopes
Doilies
A stack of old-school library check out cards
Newspaper

Writing & Snipping
A couple circle punches and a tag punch for putting all those scraps to good use
One corner rounder
A paper cutter
Scissors, right there and ready to snip, tape too
A paint pen for writing happy notes on ceramic gifts
Nice black pens, they must be black, I don’t like to do blue if possible
A blender pen!

Boxes & Mailing
Jewelry boxes (for sending these)
Kohls boxes I save from grandma’s gifts
Mailing boxes I save
Bubble wrap envelopes
Bakery boxes and the like
A couple priority envelopes

Things to tie
Yarn
Divine Twine
String
Whatever ribbon is on sale that I think is lovely
Fabric scraps

Stationary
Birthday cards which I am finally organizing by when they should be sent
Return address labels
Stickers, I just love using these with tissue paper
Blank cards and thank you cards for grown ups and kids
A thank-you-note-making binder for my kids
Empty envelopes, in white and red

Gift toppers made in advance
Like paper and felt corsages, pom poms, suckers, pinwheels, oragami

My new favorite thing (!!) Pick up some contact paper at a garage sale (or buy some really fancy stuff), cut it with your circle punch, and you have labels for years to come. I like the faux bois myself.

Love making tags from bits of scraps and books.

My college ballet textbook was too pretty to punch into pieces, so alas, though it’s not as green, I made copies of my favorite pages and punched those.

My sticker makergives me the super powers to make a sticker out of anything.These glassine envelopes were super affordable and I use them all the time.Tissue paper makes me so cheerful. I like it plain and I like it stamped.