Wrappers Delight

I always marvel at the Pinterest photos of entire rooms designated to the task of gift wrapping.  There are entire Boards dedicated to the art of gift wrapping and the room that it is done in.  In my world, you have to be pretty lucky to have a house big enough to turn an entire room into a place where you can go to wrap Christmas, Birthday and other holiday gifts.  I think Tori Spelling's Mom, Candy, had one in her mega-mansion and even made sure that her new mini-mansion had one as well.  She must dole out a lot of gifts!

I am not blessed with a house that is large enough to warrant a permanent space for my bows, ribbons and paper so I had to compromise.  For the past (almost) 4 years, all of our wrapping supplies have lived in a rubbermaid tub in the basement.  It was an unorganized mess and I got fed up digging through it trying to find what I needed so I set my mind to finding a solution.

There are some "gift wrapping stations" on the market that would have worked like this one from the Container Store...

... but at $189 a pop, I had to find another solution.

Enter IKEA.

I have had my eye on a certain product for a while and kept trying to figure out a good use for it in our place.  Finally, I found one.  Say hello to Alex!

This white lacquer drawer system was the answer to my wrapping prayers.  It has 5 drawers with ample space for all my wrapping supplies - and then some!  I put this puppy together all by myself and I'm loving the organization that it offers.

It settled into a corner of our storage closet in the basement and lives next to the basket of wrapping paper rolls.  Sorry the image is so dark - iPhone photo!

I wasted no time filling it up with all the goodies.  That basket on top is full of bows (because you never know when you will need easy access to bows!).  First drawer, ribbon.

Second drawer houses tissue and tags and extra boxes. There's even a "Happy Birthday" banner in there that I've been holding onto for about 7 years!

The third drawer is where we start getting into the gift bags.  Turns out we have a LOT of them.  I decided to divide them by theme so drawer three houses the kiddy/birthday bags.

In drawer four you will find the generic/all occasion bags.  Lucy managed to photo bomb this photo!

And finally, drawer five is filled with holiday gift bags - mostly Christmas but some Valentine's Day as well.

I am really happy with my new wrapping organization station and can't wait to get in there and wrap something!  It will make life much more efficient when getting ready for a party or a birthday or a holiday.  Leave it to IKEA to offer me the perfect solution...at the perfect price.