Storage and Ribbon

When we bought our first house twelve years ago, I first began storing my stuff--things I don't use on a daily basis but still want to keep (seasonal decorations, children's clothes to pass on to the next child, special keepsakes, extra linens, etc.) in large plastic containers. I numbered each box with a permanent marker, and then wrote down the contents of each box on numbered index cards. If I changed the contents of the box, I changed the card as well. These boxes were kept in the attic above the garage in our first house, so I would look through my cards to see which box I needed down before I climbed up there. In a later house, Jimmy's daddy built us a shelf around the perimeter of our garage about 2.5 feet down from the ceiling. I lined the storage boxes up in order. All I needed was a ladder to access the boxes.....much better than climbing in the hot/cold attic. Currently my storage boxes (about 40 of them) are housed on shelves in the storage room in our basement. Jimmy built these shelves specifically for these containers, and at last I can just walk in the climate controlled room and get what I need. Instead of writing the contents on index cards, I now have a typed list of the box numbers and their contents hanging on the wall beside the shelves. Since I have been storing items this way for over 12 years now, my boxes are various colors and slightly different sizes. Also, somewhere along the way I numbered a couple of the boxes with the same numbers, so I made labels for them. The labels are not sticking very well. My next project is to purchase chalkboard paint and paint a rectangle on the front side of each box. Then I can renumber the boxes with chalk. But for now, even though some of the labels are falling off, the boxes are stored in numerical order so I can find what I need.

When I paint the chalkboard paint on the front, they will look nicer.

Also in my storage room, which is also my gift wrap and scrapbooking room, I have the neatest ribbon holder that Jimmy built me. I have more ribbon ordered, because we were out of several colors. Here are the two sites where I order ribbon and gift wrap. Paper Mart and Superior Gift Wrap. At Superior Gift Wrap, I order the Splendorette ribbon. They sell the best lime green color--it's called citrus. At Paper Mart, I order the poly ribbon. At both sites, I also order their curling ribbon. The prices may seem high, but the quantity is huge! It really is more economical to buy these large rolls. The gift wrap and the ribbon both last a long time. I bought only one roll of Christmas gift wrap when I ordered my ribbon. I wanted more!! but I think that the one new roll along with what I have left from years past will be enough for this year.

I just slide the metal rods up and out of the end to hang a new roll of ribbon. Some of the holes in the center of the rolls are not large enough to fit on the rods, so Jimmy drills them out a little bigger. Isn't this the neatest thing?