Organizing a Christmas Gift Wrap Center
While reviewing older online content for the MeroLog archive, I came across a reference to “Organizing a Christmas Gift Wrap Center,” a November 2012 article from Organized Junkie about creating a practical, dedicated space for storing and using Christmas gift-wrapping supplies.
The original article is still available, and it was published on November 27, 2012. It focuses on a simple problem familiar to anyone who wraps gifts: wrapping paper, bags, tags, ribbons, tape, scissors and other supplies can easily become scattered around the house.
Turning scattered supplies into one organized station
The basic idea behind the article is straightforward: gather all gift-wrapping supplies together and create a dedicated place where everything can be stored and accessed when needed.
The author begins by recommending that readers collect their wrapping materials from around the house, including wrapping paper, gift bags, tags, bows, stickers, tape, pens and scissors. Bringing everything together in one location makes it easier to find what is needed when gifts are ready to be wrapped.
The article recognizes that most people do not have an entire room available for gift wrapping. Instead, it focuses on compact storage solutions that can be put away when the holiday season is over.
Improving an existing gift-wrap organizer
One of the more interesting parts of the article is that the author did not simply purchase a new organization system. She already had an upright gift-wrap organizer but found that it lacked convenient storage for smaller supplies such as tags, tape, stickers and scissors.
Rather than replacing the organizer, she looked for a way to improve it.
The solution was a garden belt attached around the organizer, with 3M Command Picture Clips used to keep it securely in place. The additional pockets created accessible storage for the smaller items that had previously been difficult to organize.
This is perhaps the most useful lesson from the post: organization does not always require buying a completely new system. Sometimes an existing storage solution can be improved with a small modification.
The author then added another pocket on the opposite side to provide additional storage space.
A seasonal organization project
The article also incorporated a contemporary product promotion. The author explained that, as part of a blogging initiative with Martha Stewart, she had received items from the Martha Holiday collection sold through Staples at the time.
The post therefore combined two elements: a practical home-organization project and a seasonal product showcase. The author demonstrated how the wrapping station could be stocked with wrapping paper, tags, labels, kraft paper and other holiday supplies.
This is useful historical context because it shows how lifestyle bloggers were already combining tutorial-style content, product recommendations and brand relationships in 2012.
The basic organization method
The original article ultimately reduces the project to a straightforward process:
- Gather all wrapping supplies in one place.
- Find an appropriate container or organizer.
- Add extra storage where necessary.
- Stock the station with wrapping materials.
- Keep everything together so future gift wrapping is easier.
The concept is simple, but it addresses a very practical problem: having all the necessary materials together instead of searching for them individually every time a gift needs to be wrapped.
Revisiting the original MeroLog reference
The old MeroLog reference described this as “Organizing a Christmas Gift Wrap Center.” The original Organized Junkie article has been successfully located and matches the subject of the historical entry.
It is particularly useful that the original page remains online more than a decade after publication. The page retains its original publication date, photographs, article content and reader comments, making it possible to verify the historical reference rather than reconstructing it from secondary sources.
The page also contains reader comments from November and December 2012, several of which discuss how readers were adapting or planning to adapt the author’s organization ideas for their own gift-wrapping supplies.
What I learned from this entry
This is another example of the kind of everyday content that made up a large part of the early-2010s web.
It was not a major news event or technological breakthrough. It was a practical household problem, documented by a blogger who found a simple way to improve an existing organization system.
That makes it interesting from a digital-history perspective. It shows how personal blogs combined practical advice, photography, seasonal content, reader interaction and commercial partnerships long before many of these activities became standardized across today’s social platforms.
For MeroLog, I want to preserve these smaller pieces of internet history alongside the larger stories. They help document not only what happened online, but also what people were creating, sharing and finding useful at different points in the history of the web.
The original source remains available at Organized Junkie’s “Organizing a Christmas Gift Wrap Center.”