Out with the old and in with the new, as they say…
I was planning on hosting Turkey Dinner at my house this year (you can read more about that here), I needed to leave my fall decor out until after Thanksgiving, naturally…
Since Turkey Dinner was going to be set in my living room dining room combo, that left my family room open for making the transition from Halloween and Fall right into Christmas, early! I was definitely pushing the envelope on Holiday Decor by bringing it right into early November! Honestly decorating for Christmas is my favorite thing ever, so I truly couldn't help myself.
I will share more details of my holiday decor later in the week, stay tuned for that!
As part of the Holiday Home Organization Blogger Challenge from Apartment Guide, I made it my mission to not only organize but simplify the decorating and storing process!
Bringing out all of these over sized goodies like the 6 1/2 foot twig tree below, didn't leave much room for the Halloween Treats that were still lingering, and so I needed to figure out an easy way to store my decor that wouldn't leave me frustrated next Halloween season.
No more digging through mislabeled boxes that are falling apart after years of use!
Color coded plastic bins is what I decided to do. I feel like next year it will be visually simple to find the appropriate items I want to pull out, if they are stored by color according to the holiday! Fall and Halloween have mutual decor in my house, so one for Fall and one for Halloween in the same color is perfect for now until I build up my holiday decor for this time of year. Then I will most likely need to increase to a third, but for now… light blue is for fall. While I realize it's probably a better color for Easter or Spring, light blue is what they happened to have at my local big box home improvement store. Light blue it is…
I try and layer my bins by using the items themselves to help support and protect other items in the bin with them. Placing the foam jack o lanterns on opposite ends of the bin and laying down an old towel in between left a perfectly protected place to put my precious ceramic skeleton, given to me by my MIL! Of course fragile pieces need to be protected a bit further and so I wrapped him in bubble wrap making sure to separate his limbs since it's most likely that if he breaks it will be because his limbs were clinking together.
Once he was well wrapped he went right in between the foam pumpkins and then the remainder of my spooky decor was added to the mix! My resin skeleton, a lot less breakable was snuggled with towels and my foam tombstones and spider friend went gently on top.
Zip lock freezer bags are your best friend when you are storing small items that don't have their original box or bag. They will help you see what's what while keeping things together and providing a tad bit of protection as well. Of course placing padded items near the top of the bin just as we did on the bottom with the foam pumpkins is definitely smart. Here you can see the stuffed spider and feather boa help add that little extra buffer for the items that are breakable.
A large clear label on the bins will help you differentiate between seasons and remind you of your color coding genius the following year, just in case you happen to forget.
