Upcycle gift boxes into ornament and holiday décor storage

Do you need a cheaper and easier way to store your Christmas and holiday décor?

Do you like to recycle and upcycle?

Did you get a fabulous new sweater for Christmas in a gift box?

Did you know that many of those gift boxes that hold shirts and other apparel work perfectly for ornaments and other holiday décor PLUS they stack in other storage boxes or totes for easy and neat storage?

ornament storage ideas — You make the dividers to fit the ornaments you have.

With this upcycling idea you can take it a step farther than what I will show you. I am not into pretty and fancy storage at this point in my life. I am more about function and price.

I know you are probably thinking “the other bloggers make everything look so beautiful with ribbons and bows”. Well, I gave up trying to be perfect years ago when I found that being perfect means you spend less time with your family (missing out on fun times and great memories). I am a blogger who will share with you from my experiences and sometimes I may have spectacular photos and other times I may not. Bear with me because I am on a learning curve and I am more interested in getting ideas out to you than making sure I have impressive professional looking photos. Creating and sharing good informative content with you, my readers is why I blog. As I learn more about blogging and the technical stuff, I will make changes to my blog (and my sharing). I will share with you many ideas, tips, and tricks I have discovered over the years as well as some of my mishaps or ideas gone wrong. I hope this helps you discover that no one has the perfect life or idea (even though you would think from some of the photos they do).

Oh shoot I digressed…

I only put 1 divider in here because it was odds and ends

I did not spend a lot of time making this project pretty. I do confess I tried to spray paint the inside but that was a fail. Then I realized that no one but me (oh and now you ) will see the inside of the box. The purpose of this upcycle was to replace my existing ornament storage which never really worked. Many of my ornaments are priceless (to me) and so protecting them is the only purpose I had for this project.

You can take my idea and run with it. Creating a beautifully lined box or just use some duct tape and cereal boxes and leave well enough alone. Maybe one day I will make the inside pretty. Or not. I am about function at this state in my life.

These were the dividers from the 'ornament tote' as sold. The bottoms were pieces of cut cardboard and the dividers were never sturdy PLUS they never held the ornaments well — These were the dividers from the ‘ornament tote’ as sold. The bottoms were pieces of cut cardboard and the dividers were never sturdy PLUS they never held the ornaments well

The hardest part of this project is getting the duct tape to stick to the box strips and not my fingers. You can use hot glue but I ran out of glue sticks and I did not want to spend the time with glue and clips to put the dividers in place. Duct tape is something everyone should have on hand. It can repair a lot of things in your home and yard.

Creating. Inspiring. Gardening without the rules!

purchased this tote years ago with the cardboard dividers that never impressed me. This tote holds 3 shirt boxes plus 1 flat 2″ box that is on the bottom holding special paper creations from my kids

cut the cereal and other boxes into strips that are as deep as the gift box

I used duct tape to secure. You could easily take the time and use duct tape to make the inside look pretty but I did not want to take the time to make this pretty

I did not even measure. I just put the bent in and then eyeballed the other end and bent it to fit. The beauty of cardboard is that you can bend it more than once! Cut off the excess after you find the right length so you can tape each end inside the box

I just tore off a piece of tape and stuck it to the box.

I used the ornaments as a guide for the size of each divide and secured with the duct tape

For the inside edges I folded the outside of the duct tape into each other and secured the sides of the divides to hold in place.

Again I did not even measure- You can but it is just as easy to eyeball and tape. But this step to make the cross divides, I just eyeballed again and cut a slit more than 1/2 way down on the taped divide and repeated on the 2nd strip that was to go across

2014-12-27 10.45.47 — You need a slit on each section so that they lay inside each other. The cardboard is flexible so you do not have to be exact, just close

I slid the divider down and make adjustments in the cuts so the dividers would go down

I used pieces to go across since the cereal box was not long enough. the duct tape secures it well

Most of these ornaments are handmade by my kids or store bought clay ornaments so I wrapped in tissue paper and stacked.

I tried one with glue, It works but I want instant gratification so I went with duct tape

You use the office clips to hold the dividers down until the glue dries

2014/2015 copyrighted material C Renee Fuller @ The Garden Frog Boutique

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Create Ornament Storage from Upcycled Gift and Shoe Boxes says:

December 29, 2015 at 5:19 pm

[…] last year (after I found about half a dozen ornaments broken at the bottom of the tote) I upcycled and created ornament boxes out of left over clothing boxes and cut up cereal boxes using duct tape and just quickly put them […]