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How did decluttering holiday and party decor go for you? Did you find anything that you were able to toss or donate? The last time I cleaned out my party supplies I found birthday candles that were only about an inch high. Um, what? Why keep those? 

If you are just joining us, here’s the deal: 

I still had this mindset of decluttering being a big ol’ chore up until a few months ago when I read this fantastic post from Nony at A Slob Comes Clean. It was like a huge light went off in my brain! Decluttering is simply the act of getting rid of what doesn’t belong, isn’t needed, or belongs in the trash. It doesn’t mean buying a whole slew of new bins for your things to go in or coming up with some type of system that you hope will change your life – that’s organizing. It’s a whole different ball game. Right now, I’m in the game of decluttering. I just want things GONE.

When there’s less stuff, especially less of what has no purpose in your home anymore, organizing can often happen naturally. You won’t be cramming thirty towels into the closet because you only need ten and they fit nicely. You don’t need to dig through a tub of medicines to find what you need only to keep coming across bottles that are long since expired.

Here’s my challenge: Each week, take on ONE area of your home. I’ve already made the list for you so that part is done. Go to the area, throw away trash, put items that you no longer need but are still in good condition into a donation box, and put other items where they belong. Simple!

You can read more about the challenge on the week one post.

Week 51: Gift Wrapping Supplies

If you are like me you are spending these few final days leading up to Christmas knee deep in tissue, wrapping paper, and gift bags. You’ve probably lost the tape a few times, scrambled around for the scissors or a pen and wonder if ribbon is really necessary (hint: it’s not!). While you are in the middle of wrapping all these gifts, take a gander at your supplies and declutter at the same time! 

We have two spots for wrapping supplies: an under the bed tote for all the Christmas wrap/bags/tags and a stand up organizer for miscellaneous gift bags. We rarely wrap other than Christmas because we have SO MANY GIFT BAGS. 

We actually went through all our gift bags and wrapping paper at the start of the year because we were only using the stand up bin and it did not fit all the rolls of wrapping paper we owned. And we were trying to hold all our gift bags in a jumbo gift bag. It was a mess. But of course did I take pictures of that original decluttering? NOPE. Fail on my part. But I know we still have things to part with now. 

First, I actually got as much wrapping done as possible so I could use up the smaller rolls. Usually I try to stick to one color wrapping per person. I don’t use tags on the gifts and the kids won’t know which wrapping paper is theirs until they open their stocking. It’s fun but it leaves lots of partial rolls when there isn’t enough the following year. I decided to just wrap everything randomly this year to use up as many rolls as I could. I emptied three rolls! 

I also decided we do not need ribbon. We never use it, it’s been in our wrapping supplies almost as long as we’ve been married, and simply gets in the way when it starts to unravel. GONE. 

I didn’t find any Christmas gift bags in poor condition or that I wanted to toss so I put all the supplies back in and closed it up. I’ll open it up again tomorrow when I resume my wrapping. Hopefully I can empty another roll or two that only has a bit left. 

In the bin of other gift bags (which at this point is still 82.5% new baby bags) I found a few bags in not so great condition or from a store (um, I’m not going to wrap someone’s gift in a Gymboree bag) so those are getting tossed and I’m determined to find something to wrap in the gift box so it can go away. It’s the only one we have because we never use them! 

All cleaned out and ready to get used even more heavily this week! I may even decide to donate a bunch of these gift bags after the season is over. How many gift bags are really necessary to keep on hand?

Happy wrapping everyone and I hope you have a wonderful and joyous Christmas! 

Share a picture on social media with the hashtag #clutterbusterchallenge of what you found to declutter.

Come back next week for week 52 for our FINAL WEEK! AHHHH! That’s right. It’s the last week of this year long challenge. To keep things simple during the week of Christmas we will be doing some digital decluttering and working though our email subscriptions. I’ve got a couple different options to show you so come on back next Tuesday!