Ruthless, yet Effective Ways To Declutter Your Home – Gift Edition
You don’t have to be a parent to notice that children are particularly messy. Quite frankly, all you have to do is take a glance at one eating to realise how mucky they can be.
Despite cleaning every day, watching Mrs Hinch videos, and creating habit schedules, tidying up after kids is a never-ending task. Even a good, old spring clean is no use! Whether it’s at home or at nursery, stuff just accumulates and gets harder to shift. And when it comes to birthdays and Christmas…don’t get us started! *Internally screams*
If you don’t have a helping hand around the house or become easily stressed with the thought of decluttering your home after Christmas, here are a few tips and tricks to help you manage the mounting, unwanted mess.
Start with the packaging
There’s no doubt that the presents would have arrived in some sort of gift bag or cardboard box. If you’re anything like the average household who stacks plastic bags like Russian dolls, determine the bags you’re actually going to use, rather than what you think is useful to keep.
Although many would store old Christmas gift bags, for decluttering purposes, we suggest you recycle these. There are only so many Christmas bags you can reuse without accumulating more within the next year.
Sort through the gifts
Not all children’s toys will be used. In fact, you may find some still in boxes after Christmas. For unopened gifts, sort what’s heading to charity and which ones are staying. Better still, recycle old presents for new ones later down the line! Just remember who bought them in the first place to avoid the awkward encounter.
Take the toys out of the box
This tip is more so for the children that will undoubtedly scream if you take away their precious, unused toys. With this step, it may be best to sit with your child and sort through any unused gifts. If it doesn’t have a place in the home, don’t worry about this just yet. Just get it out of the box to avoid build-up of any more clutter! Bin anything that can’t be recycled and as for the toy/product itself, give it to your child to play with for a bit while you carry on.
Get rid of the fiddly bits
Annoyingly when opening gift boxes, the floor becomes a magnet for the fiddly stuff, and by that, we mean any plastic ties, cardboard cut-outs and other unnecessary items which make the process of unwrapping toys infuriating.
For fellow crafters, there’s no doubt that you could conjure up something bizarrely innovative with bits of bolts, ribbon, and other whatnots. For those that don’t have the time, or quite frankly the patience, ditch them in the bin. Within reason mind. Climate change is real, so recycle where you can.
Organise gift boxes
Aside from the usual packaging, sort through all gift bags and boxes to determine what can be used for future occasions. If you can’t bear the thought of throwing some decorative gift boxes away, repurpose them for practical storage solutions. There are plenty of tips and tricks on upcycling beautiful trinkets and jewellery boxes.
On the other hand, if you’re left with the oh-so-cute nesting gift boxes, even better!
Depending on how much you can tolerate your children, organise a day of arts and crafts! Decorate and stack nesting gift boxes to recreate nice-to-look-at characters. Build your very own snowman, tree or even teddy bear. As before, there are plenty of easy-to-make designs online.
Parents have even taken it one step further and decorated gift boxes to resemble blocks of Lego. One thing we do suggest, however, is to avoid recreating clowns. They can be quite terrifying to look at, especially at nighttime.
Tidy their room
Last but not least, after you’ve done your days worth of crafting, sorting, and decluttering, purge your home! Head straight to the kids’ rooms and toss away anything that’s not of use. Whether that’s a half-broken barbie or a lonely sock you’ve tried to reunite for months, get rid of it. If it makes life any easier, send your children to their grandparents to avoid unnecessary tantrums.
If you STILL find that there’s not much free space to store the new gifts, move the furniture around or better still, sell it on Facebook marketplace. Your partner may never need to know.
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