Yes, they are easy to put gifts in.
Yes, you can reuse them so they are cost effective.
Yes, I have used them on numerous occasions.
Yes, I have a Million of them.
If you love gift bags, I'm sorry. This post is probably not for you, until I get to the part about organizing them. But first things first, I vent:
First of all, you cant rip into a bag. Who doesn't like tearing into fresh wrapping paper? It's like buried treasure! It's a small form of therapy! It's total bliss!! But there are people who don't like it. You know who I'm talking about. The ones who gently un-stick the tape, slide the box out so carefully, leaving a wrapping paper carcass you could actually use again. Where's the fun in that? You'd think with my OCD tendencies I would love trying to get a perfect "carcass," but I don't. I want to make a huge mess of paper, then promptly clean it up. Nuts, right?
Anyway, another pet peeve is the tissue paper. I have tried and tried to find the best way to use tissue paper in a bag, but it always looks stupid. some people can make it look so beautiful, like a paper sculpture. Not me. Wadded. Mess.
And speaking of wadded messes, the most annoying thing is un-wadding the paper and folding it back neatly so you can use it again. Yes, I do that. Don't act like I'm the only one. It's free paper! But seriously annoying, nonetheless.
You can peek into bags. No fun. No surprise.
Not only do I hate gift bags, I have more than the average person. I used to teach, and every Christmas and Valentines Day I got about 50 bags (my number, my data, totally made up, but probably close). So teachers have exponentially more bags than anyone else on the planet. The amount of bags in my container was getting out of control. The lid wouldn't close without me sitting on it. There was an unfounded fear that they would somehow come alive and smother me. Time to do something about it. Enter my hero, the command hook.
First I had to sort through the mountain of bags I had. I threw away some (yes! I did it!) then continued to put them in piles. I had a Christmas pile, baby pile, wedding pile, then some for general use. I sorted those into girly colors and manly colors. I chose the largest bag from each pile to house the remaining bags. Then I had to find a place to put them.
We have the most ridiculous hall closet. It's in the shape of a triangle with triangle shelves. Now tell me, what is going to fit on a triangular shelf that will utilize the space most efficiently? Nothing!! But I did have a large chunk of wall space at the top. This would be perfect for hanging bags. A stepladder and a few command hooks and I was ready to go. Here is the finished product.
I also needed a place to keep the tissue paper. A Hefty 2.5 gallon zip bag and a binder clip did the trick. They can be hard to find, but I found mine at Wal-Mart.
Now I don't hate my gift bags (or my stupid hall closet) as much. And if you want to come shop my closet for a bag, please do!
The Turners
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