Growing up our Christmas tree was always colored lights and a hodge podge of ornaments usually with our names (sister and I) on them. We'd get ornaments every year. Since there was so much going on with the tree we pretty much used whatever wrapping papers we liked. There were always tons to pick from and honestly it all looked good. Now I decorate a small tree with my ornaments the same as when I was growing up and it still makes me smile. Very homey and reminds me of my childhood. BUT, the big tree we have (did our first one last year) since there were only a few ornament colors I picked wrapping paper to match because honestly it would've bugged me. This year we changed the blue ornaments to red so it's red, white, silver, cream and I bought different paper to coordinate. Years from now when we finally have kids I'm sure all this matchy, matchy perfection stuff might go out the window!

Last night I was flipping through a showhouse spread and came across a great bedroom that had greyish/ taupey walls, an old globe collection and an accent of orange on the bed. Got me to thinking about Deedee's response and our boys game/tv/getaway from our annoying little sister room. I've never been able to finish it off. I was just never 110% sold on whatever look I started in there. I have 2 wooden chairs that I posted here before when I painted them turquoise, an old globe collection and an oak table that has been looking for a permanent home in our house. DH has already retrofitted an antique bureau as a gaming place for the boys by converting the top drawer to a drop down front for the controllers and such. I think I will try the trunk in that room for toys and paint those chairs w/ leftover orange paint that I have and paint the walls leftover BM Revere Pewtwer. Fingers Crossed! Thanks Deedee!

Thanks for all the great ideas and resources! As with many projects, I think I need to think more about this. Right now Christmas wrapping paper is stored in a plastic upright bin, and holiday ribbon, labels, tape and sharpies are in one of those stackable set of small bins that latch together. Holiday gift bags, boxes, envelopes, and miscellaneous supplies like gift card boxes are in a separate bin. Holiday bows in their own box. All that is stored in my loft , each box numbered according to my master list of holiday supplies, taken down each holiday season and returned after the holidays are over for another year of storage. Birthday and general wrapping paper consists of a few rolls that are stacked/shoved into a corner of my bedroom closet. I've got birthday/general bows, boxes, bags, etc. stored in an under bed bin in the same room. Since I am the last woman in America still sending holiday cards ;), those are stored right now in a drawer of my filing cabinet in our home office. Random birthday, sympathy, get well etc. card are in an accordion folder stuck in a corner of the same drawer. Tape and scissors are in various drawers in my kitchen and home office. need to give some thought to how and what exactly I want to organize in this new space. Hadn't really considered whether paper should be displayed on dowels or tucked into drawers, or whether a hutch and a flat table are a good combination etc. Had no idea Home Depot carried a Martha Stewart gift wrap storage line. Thinking maybe IKEA would be a resource since they seem to have a lot of modular storage type pieces. So this will be a fun mental puzzle with a decorating slant--hurray!

We also do bags for odd shaped items, but mostly we do paper because we're coming off 7 years of elementary school gift wrap fund raisers... I joke with DD that her kids are going to get gifts wrapped in some of that paper. I've vowed to not buy anymore paper until we use up what we have. So no theme, except paper we like. In our family, particularly with DH's family, we tend to recycle the gift bags and the same ones turn up year after year. It's sort of fun to see the same ones again and again, though sometimes hard to make a call that one needs to be culled and recycled.