Gift Wrap Organization Ideas

I have a ton of gift wrapping supplies...and I like it that way. It means I don't really have to spend much time and money actually purchasing supplies and can instead, put together color coordinated, pretty packages. John has bugging me since pretty much November 18, 2012 to get my gift wrap out of his game room. It's been in long, shallow boxes but not all of them can fit together in a closet or under a bed.

I finally decided that the disorganized mess needed to be fixed! If you search Pinterest, there are a ton of extravagant, creative ways to store and organize gift wrap. While an entire gift wrapping wall or room sounds fantastic, I simply do not have the room or the time to put something like that together. So I went with a strategy focused on space available and simplicity of design.I ended up spending a bit more money on this project than I intended but I think the finished product is clean, simple and nice looking.

Here is the before storage. You can see everything's crammed into a bunch of boxes with no real rhyme or reason. And kept on the floor of my office and the game room.

Here is the space in the office closet that I chose for my storage station.

I purchased one skinny white laundry basket and two three-drawer storage carts from Walmart. $7 or $8 for the laundry basket and $20 each for the drawers. I wanted the skinny laundry basket for my rolls of wrapping paper. This way I didn't run into issues with some being too long to fit into the storage box and I can easily see the patterns I have. I've never seen a laundry basket this skinny but it was perfect for this project!

I would suggest categorizing your drawers ahead of time and then start sorting things based on those drawers. I knew I needed drawers for boxes, bags, tissue paper and then other miscellaneous items (tags, tape, scissors, etc). Another tip is to store the heavier items in the bottom drawers so the containers don't get top-heavy and fall over. I loaded the bottom drawer with boxes (both flat folded gift boxes and boxes of various sizes).

 As I organized, I realized I had way more bags than I thought so I sorted them into small, medium, large and extra large. The extra large bags did not fit into the drawers so I sandwiched them between the wrapping paper basket and the drawers.  Then I created one drawer for the large bags and a second for the small/medium bags.

Tall, skinny wine bottle bags on the right

Christmas bags on the right

Tissue paper was my biggest challenge. Again, I had way more of it than I'd thought. Don't tell anyone I said this, but I think I'm a bit of a packrat. I started by laying out the tissue paper by color and threw away the pieces that were ripped or balled up to the point of no return. It actually felt good to purge some of this stuff! Then I folded each color into a square and stacked into the next drawer. Solid colors on the left and patterned papers on the right.

Lexi decided to help organize the tissue paper all over the house

The top drawer consists of lots of ribbons and bows so that I can easily select one that goes along with the color and style of the package I create.

Here's the finished product! And of course one with Lexi posing. Can't wait to wrap my next gift!

Down with the old man, up with the new

It's the Monday after Easter and while I don't actually have an office to go to, I am still reluctant to "go" to work today. I hope everyone had a great Easter! It was bittersweet for me this year since it was the first time not celebrating with my family in North County.  But at the same time, I was able to attend an amazing church service and start some fun new traditions right here in San Dimas with the Kolbeck family.

We attended the CCV church service as we did last year. Because of the influx of people during the holiday, the services are held at Azusa Pacific University so they really make it a neat event. I volunteered during Saturday's service and couldn't wait to attend on Sunday. 

Each year they set up baptism pools and give everyone in the audience (that's hundreds of people!) a chance to give their life to Jesus, start fresh or simply recommit. John and I decided to take the plunge! Pat also wanted to make the commitment so together at the end of the service we approached the pools. The first person we came across was none other than Pastor Dane Johnson...the pastor who married us! We asked if he could also baptize us. It was an incredible experience and I'm so glad we were able to do it together as a married couple. I haven't been able to get Kenny Chesney's song "Baptism" out of my head since! God is good!

After church we headed to the Kolbeck's for some swimming, puppy playtime and family fun. Since we are all adults, we came up with our own egg hunt. We'd each filled five eggs ahead of time with anything we wanted, had a friend hide the eggs and off we went! It was so fun to be a bit competitive with each other and then see what goodies we each received. The treats ranged from chocolates and jelly beans to Chapstick and nail polish to bottles of wine. There was even a "golden" egg with $100!! 

As for John and I...the Easter bunny made a quick stop at our house too. Along with some other things, he left these adorable mason jar candle holders! I have them on our entry table for a rustic, springtime feel but hope to use them on our patio table soon.

What an Amazing Day

Congratulations on making it through another week! Today I'm hoping we can all stop and take a minute to reflect on what this Friday means...Good Friday.

Today is when we, as Christians, commemorate Jesus' death on the cross. Sometimes I wonder how we can call it Good Friday. How can such a brutal, hate-filled death be considered good?! But the fact is that this entire day happened for US. Jesus laid down His life for you and for me. Wow, what an act of love.

I've been listening to my Hillsong Pandora station all morning and the song "Jesus Paid It All" came on. How perfect for today. The lyrics say:
"Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow."

Take a minute out of your Easter preparations, candy eating, and egg coloring, and let that sink in. This is the essence of Good Friday. And hopefully that brings a smile to your face.

Ready for Summer!

The warm Southern California weather has arrived! It has consistently been 80 degrees or warmer here which means it's time to go outside and get some sun. I love to sit outside with a good book and a glass of iced tea. Or BBQ tri-tip and eat dinner on the patio. Or enjoy a glass of wine around the firepit. You get the idea...

We were perusing Target (affectionately pronounced Tar-jay) yesterday and came across some great lawn and garden finds! I, of course, wanted to buy one of everything but we exercised some self-control and decided we'd look for some bargains on those items we really want.

I'd love a couple chaise lounge patio chairs like this one so that I can more comfortably read AND tan at the same time.

http://www.target.com/p/room-essentials-nicollet-sling-patio-chaise-lounge-tan/-/A-14667220#prodSlot=medium_1_8 

Or a few of these cool lanterns for the patio table.

http://www.target.com/p/threshold-tall-rattan-solar-lantern-medium/-/A-14749768#prodSlot=medium_1_11http://www.target.com/p/threshold-tall-rattan-solar-lantern-medium/-/A-14749768#prodSlot=medium_1_11

But we settled on a couple tiki torches, which turned out to be a great little facelift! TWO torches for $7!! You can't beat it. We also got some citronella fuel and were on our merry way! Now if we could only keep the mosquitoes away so John will stay outside with me...

South Africa Recap - February 2014

YouTube Link: http://youtu.be/nPCa0HHT_zs

This video is much longer than the one from London. But that's because we were there for several more days and had many more adventures!! I've incorporated several different videos taken on my GoPro, iPhone and regular camera. They really help bring the entire experience to life. Hope you enjoy!

Music inspired by my experiences in South Africa:
1. Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) by Shakira - was the 2010 World Cup theme song
2. God Bless Africa by The Robben Island Singers
3. Circle of Life by Elton John - classic from The Lion King
4. Mama Africa by Akon - a more recent record
5. Africa by Toto - I had this song in my head the entire trip!
6. Hakuna Matata - just for fun :)

Highlights from London - February 2014

I am no video editor but I had a blast using Microsoft MovieMaker to put together this recap of our time in London. I am working on the South Africa version now!! Let me know what you think!

Lessons from London - Part 2

A little bit more about our London adventures...

Outside Westminster Abbey

After our tour of the Abbey, we decided to visit Piccadilly Circus, which is kind of like London's Times Square. Here there are lots of theaters but our sights were set on the shopping. We had gotten a tip that Lillywhites is a great place to buy sports souvenirs and we were not disappointed. The store was huge...we only visited three of the four of five, maybe even six floors. And we picked up just a few things on the way. :)

Lesson 6: The Exchange Rate will trick you!! Today 1 British Pound is the equivalent of $1.66. Which means when we got excited about a shirt that was on sale for 10.99 Pounds, that really meant $18. And when your grand total comes to 100 Pounds, that really means you spent $166. Your money does not go very far in London so beware!!

Some of our shopping bags

After all of that shopping we thought we deserved a break. So we stopped at a British pub. There are tons of them everywhere and they are so cute! Actually, everything in London was exactly like you see in the movies. A lot of the pubs we saw had fun creative names (The Queen's Head, Sherlock Holmes, Ship and Shovell) and had the bar portion on the bottom floor and a more formal dining area on the second floor. Separated by tiny, steep staircases.

Lesson 7: Get up and order your food at the bar. Not sure if this is the case for every single place in London or Europe but it was the case at a few of the places we tried. Especially at The Comedy Pub where there was one man working the entire bar and restaurant area. They won't greet you at the door, seat you or send servers to take your order so it's best to get up and order as soon as you're ready.

This one was The Comedy Pub where we had a pint of Carling, fish and chips and meat pie.

The London Eye is a giant ferris wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames. It also happened to be right next to our hotel and part of the view outside our window. It was huge and moved VERY slowly. Apparently so slowly that it does not even stop for you to get off...you just kind of hop out as it moves towards the ground! This was another recommendation but it was not something we ended up having time for. I think it would have given a magnificent view of the entire city.

Here's the London Eye from right underneath

London Eye straight back, Hotel is the building on the right

One of my favorite moments was enjoying complimentary wine and cheese in the Library at our hotel on Friday evening. Our view of Big Ben was incredible. It was so nice to just slow down for a second and enjoy our surroundings and the fact that we got to spend time in such a great city.

Our next adventure was to conquer Harrod's, a very upscale department store located in the Knightsbridge area of London. We got there with only an hour and a half to shop until it closed (see Lesson 5) but we got a taste of the shopping experience. The building itself is old and beautiful and has SEVEN floors. We just scraped the surface of all there is to discover here.

Lesson 8: You could (and probably should) spend an entire day at Harrod's. You have your standard men's wear, women's wear, luxury goods, etc but also a perfumery, personal shopping, an accessories section, gift wrapping service, wine spirits and cigars, toy kingdom, technology, furniture, and so on. We spent most of our time in the Food Hall buying gifts.

On Saturday morning we got up bright and early to pack up and see a few more sights. We walked through St. James Park...

...to Buckingham Palace. We wanted to see the Changing of the Guards, which takes place every other day during this time of year. Even an hour before the ceremony, the area was crammed with people.

Lesson 9: Allow lots of time to get a good spot if you are really interested in Changing of the Guards. Otherwise, it's fun to be in the area but maybe a bit overrated. There is much pomp and circumstance surrounding this very old tradition. They still make a big deal out of this ceremony so it's fun to experience.

The Tower of London was our final stop before we were off to the airport for our next adventure. This is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames. It's known as Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress and is home to the Crown Jewels....which were breathtaking. It's illegal to take pictures so you'll just have to imagine them.

From the outside

With London Bridge in the background

After our visit to the Tower, we headed back to the hotel, hopped in a cab for Heathrow. We checked our bags, thought we had plenty of time for dinner and beer and ended up having to run through the airport to get on our flight! What a hilarious time!

Lesson 10: Put London on your bucket list. It's an incredible place full of world history and lots of activities. I am already planning to go back someday and spend a longer period of time there.

I'm sure there are plenty of details that I've left out so I hope I get to share my stories, pictures and videos with you soon. Also, I've been working on loading my GoPro videos to my YouTube channel. You can check them out here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrh4FvTHZKFdIShDC4HkR6RtJcMonr4Zg. I will also start a South Africa playlist once I get home (the internet here is slow and it takes at least two hours to upload one video). Cheers!