Christmas Ornament Organization

When I first moved to Newtown (and before I moved), I started reading all these blogs on how to organize, clean, etc.  Basically, I was trying to educate myself how to be a housewife (because at our old house, when it came to cleaning and organizing, my mother-in-law did it for me - and she was good at it - so I figured...why bother!).

She doesn't live so close now, so I really needed to learn to do it on my own (and I still very much struggle!).  Nonetheless, I am proud of how I learned to organize my Christmas decorations!!

Here is a photo of the tree that my mother gave us for Christmas (and my mother did most of the decorating - because I am not good at that either!).

Gotta love the pillow my mom needlepointed for me while I was in college - it is a purple pansy - to represent my favorite color and my sorority flower (Kappa Alpha Theta from Lehigh University).

When my mother gifted me the furniture from her old house, she sent along MANY plastic bins filled with stuff....and more stuff.  So, after unpacking all of it (thanks to my mother and mother-in-law who helped), I had lots of empty bins - perfect and FREE storage for my new "nice room" Christmas tree decorations.

The problem was that you cannot see inside the bins - and I have a bad memory.

 So, I used my Christmas Gift (Nikon D5100 camera) and took some nice photos (really, I snapped them as quickly as possible, didn't bother with photoshop and just hit print) of the inside of each bin.
Then, I taped the pictures to the top and side of each bin.  All I need to do is look at a photo to know what is inside!

 

This was our family room tree - not nearly as nice, but it contained our "fun" Hallmark Ornaments (I am a Hallmarkoholic - I buy at least six new ornaments per year!).  This room also has all the "fun" decorations (many of our ornaments play music and move).

  

For those "fun" decorations, I used my clear bins.  I hate taking ornaments in and out of hallmark boxes year after year - too much work!  So I lined clear bins with foam and separated the ornaments by either year and/or series.  Ornaments went into the right bin, labels were put onto the bins (even though I can see what is inside, labels are quite helpful, especially when I am seeking a specific ornament).  Likewise, these are stored in the basement and are extremely easy to access for next year's decorating!

I believe that Costco is still selling these bins.  In comparison to what is offered at other stores, these were relatively inexpensive, quite sturdy, and stack nicely.  I also like the black "hooks" on the tops because they snap into place quite nicely.