Set up your own gift wrapping station like The Home Edit

Gift wrapping might be a year-round activity, but brace yourself because we’re hitting peak season. And with this year’s events seeing many of us mailing and posting what we’d normally give in person, it pays to get going now.

A gift wrapping champion doesn’t rummage through cupboards and drawers for supplies, though. Nor play hunt the scissors, tags, and Scotch tape. No, an efficient wrapper has a full range of supplies to hand, in plain sight, for finishing every gift beautifully. In other words, a gift wrapping station.

Where can we have seen such a fabulous asset for every home? Fans of The Home Edit are there already. The brilliant organizers Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin created a Christmas wrapping station for comedian and actor and, as the duo say, queen of gift giving, Retta in episode five of their Netflix show Get Organized with The Home Edit.

You can check out their great design, below, then scroll down for tips on making your own wrapping station. 

How to create a wrapping station like The Home Edit

1. The first lesson to draw from this brilliant design? You need to be able to see all your gift-wrapping supplies to avoid the hunting for stuff that wastes time. Clea and Joanna have used transparent storage throughout, so you could follow along in their footsteps, but there are alternatives. So long as your holders leave enough of the gift wrap, gift bags and so on on show, you can opt for alternative materials. For the smaller items? Open compartmentalised containers will make things easy to find.

2. Office-style storage is ideal for a wrapping station. The designs that hold files and folders on a desk suit the taller supplies, while the type that fit smaller desk essentials will accommodate ribbons, bows, scissors and tape.

3. Organizing by color is a favorite tactic for Clea and Joanna, and now is the time to make like the talented pair. Section gift bags and gift wrap by shade so you can pick easily for every gift-giving occasion. Do the same with ribbons and bows.

4. This wrapping station includes cards for different events, and we’d recommend doing the same in yours, so you’re never caught out without a card for birthdays, to say thank you, to mark an anniversary, etc.

5. What about rolls of gift wrap, we hear you ask. We like to stash these in a basket to ensure they’re easy to grab, but you will need a taller cupboard than here to include them in your wrapping station in this way. The alternative is to lay them down in file dividers to keep them separate.

6. The best way to ensure your wrapping station meets your year-round needs? Write a quick list of what it should contain before you start equipping it so there’s a place for everything. Think gift tags, ribbon, bows, Scotch tape, gift wrap that’s folded or rolled, bags, cards, pens...

And, finally, if you're UK-based, make sure that you know the last posting days for Christmas.