Let’s Get Organized & Keep Our Sanity!
3 Tips for Keeping Your Christmas Wreaths
Supplies Organized and stored
After a busy and amazing Christmas season at Ladybug Wreaths, my workshop was in complete disarray! It was hard to walk around, not to mention get any work done! Half used spools of ribbon were piled in every open space, ornaments were tossed into different sized boxes and the glitter, let me tell you, the glitter covered every nook and cranny! The task was too large for one person to tackle, so my sons and their wives worked alongside me for two days pulling all the Christmas supplies out of the shop, organizing them, and restoring order to my work space!
I would love to share with you what we did to get organized and what I learned along the way! It doesn’t matter what sized space you work in or how many supplies you have leftover that need to be stored, keeping it organized will not only help with your sanity (it’s so frustrating when you can’t find a particular stem and you know it’s in there somewhere!), but will also help you make smart financial decisions for the future (more about that in tip 3).
Take a sneak peek into my newly organized attic!
As you can see, the side stickers identify that these
boxes are supplies for my shop!
1. The right sized, CLEAR, storage containers make all the difference! You can’t keep up with all of your supplies unless you can see them! It is so frustrating to be in the middle of a wreath and not be able to find a particular stem that you know you have and need to use! So, don’t waste your time buying plastic storage containers that aren’t clear! As artists, we are visual people and being able to see your supplies will help you keep up with them better!
While organizing that day, we quickly found that long glittery stems could be stored together, but needed an extra long box to do it. (Ficus leaves do too!) Floral stems (like poinsettias) went into one box together while ornaments found a home in another large clear container. Christmas ribbons went into a separate container. You might find it helpful to break up your organizing into a couple days, so you can pull everything out, sort them into categories and then go purchase the right size containers that you will need.
2. Label everything! I had several spools of leftover ribbon that will work beautifully for the 2015 Christmas season, but I needed a way to store them efficiently! I found small, clear plastic containers that would hold all of the ribbon and stuck large white sticker labels on the outside of the box. In fact, we put the sticker labels on two sides of each container. Then we carefully wrote on each label, so no matter how the boxes would be stored in my attic, it will be easy to identify what’s in each box when it’s time to pull them out again!
If you have multiples of different types of ribbon, be sure to write the quantities along with a brief description of each ribbon. This will help when you are ordering supplies for 2015 Christmas, which leads me to tip number 3…
3. Staying organized with past Christmas supplies will help you from over ordering for the coming Christmas season. As we were sorting and pulling out supplies, I was shocked to find 3 bins full of Christmas supplies that I had simply overlooked and forgotten that I owned! The boxes contained wreath supplies leftover from the 2013 Christmas season that had been packed away without any labeling on the boxes.
Because of my oversight, I missed the opportunity to use what I already had in stock and instead ordered additional supplies spending more money than needed. As you can see from my organizing experience, I have learned from this costly mistake and won’t let that happen again!
organized as I’m working on wreaths for all seasons!
My ribbons, flowers and greens are arranged in such a way
that I can easily see access them! Did you notice the assortment of plastic
containers on my shelves? I purposefully did not label those boxes since they
aren’t in storage and contain current supplies that I am using on a daily basis!
I also love hanging my greens off the shelves which run across the entire end
of my studio. I have them hanging off in such as way as to be able to see the tops
of exactly what I want. Then, there is no more digging for supplies!
13 Responses
I have the same question. I would like some advice on where to buy quality supplies at a reasonable price. I have been making wreaths for friends and family for several years. But it has recently branched into a small business. I have limited space (one bedroom). I would lime to know if you can tell me where to get, or how to make a flower tower.
Hi Kim!
That is something you could learn about in Nancy’s Inner Circle, our private community.
To read more about it, you can click here: http://www.NancysInnerCircle.com
Blessings, Nancy
Hi Nancy, I make wreaths for family and friends free and to sell here and there, nothing big and I go long spurts from doing nothing. I make some stretchy bracelets and some other junky costume jewelry. I also collect slot of stuff, lots and lots of seashells, barbies I could go on. Sometimes I feel like a 59 year old child lol.Its just my husband and 2 kitties and lots of critters outside that we feed, mainly raccoons. My house runneth over from deco mesh, ribbon and flowers anything I think I can use for making something lol. I try to keep most of my deco mesh inside in fear of it going bad, I don’t know the answer to that. Does it go bad stored properly in the attic, I have lots of stuff but no where to put it. I love ribbon too and afraid to store it in attic. Everything is stored in clear plastic boxes organized.Could you please give me some good advice. Thank you so much, a true fan of The Lady Bug. Anita Slaughter
Anita, I’ve never had any to go bad in our storage in the attic, but I would think the quality of your mesh might make a difference.
You should ask who you buy it from to make sure.
Blessings, Nancy
Thank you very much for the tips! I struggle with organizing my wreath supplies and this has been very helpful! 🙂 Happy wreath making!!! Cari Anne
You are so welcome!
Happy Wreath Making too – so happy my tips have been so helpful!
Blessings, Nancy
All of this amazing!!!!! A good friend and I have been making the Deco Mesh wreaths. We just started and haven’t had much luck selling them so we are going to get a booth at a wonderful local Flee Market store. We started with Halloween and Fall and thanksgiving. I have truly enjoyed looking at your site. ThankYou for taking the time to share so much!!!! 🙂
Thank you for visiting Karen! So happy you enjoyed my website… I have a paid community, “Nancy’s Inner Circle”, http://www.BestofNancy.com, as well as a FREE Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GrowWithNancy/!
We would LOVE to have you join us! 🙂
Have an awesome day! Nancy
Nancy, I SO relate to this! I spend so much time reorganizing as I learn. I have been purchasing more clear tubs and my sweet hubby has built me more shelves, but he wants to build me a workshop now because I have outgrown my 2 car garage, lol. I will be moving my shop into his 7 car garage soon in the meantime. I too had supplies in the attic from last year I didn’t find, and bought them again, lol. I love your shop! When I finish a project, I have to reorganize to start the next. Whew, but I love it! I have temporarily lost my garage parking spot in my husband’s garage because it is loaded with Amazon store stock and extra boxes I keep that are free. We are trying to build shelves and organize for that too. Thank you for all your tips!
You are so welcome Debbie! Thanks for your comment! 🙂
Hello
Thank you for this much needed blog.
I do keep items in clear bins, but I have too much, so I will purchase more.
Do you keep grapevine wreaths or buy them as needed? They are so messy.
Thank you
Glad this helped Gladys!
I have to keep birch wreaths in stock all the time, so I have arms hanging from my garage where they can be removed easily with my wreath stick.
hi i was force to retire and be a stay at home grammy.so im trying to earn some much neeed money.i love creating and always have.. i do make wreaths and sell them to a few friends n family, but recently i decided to sell at flea markets and im gaining a few customers.. what im looking for is suppliers.i have some craft stores near by that i shop at, but they dont seem to have nice stock, and rarely on ribbons,,im wondering if u can steer me in the right direction. thanks in advance.