Once upon a time, we lived in a small, one bedroom apartment. We did not have children. We did have two cats and we thought that they were our children, but since the cats enjoyed staying alone in the house and sleeping all day, we were somewhat deluded.
Then came the child. Just one. And with her came a larger home, and with the home came an extraordinary number of seasonal decorations. All right, so we bought the last two, but they seemed to proliferate as the child came along.
If you too are wading in seasonal decor, here are a few ruthless decorating and storage suggestions.
Use file folders for paper decorations. This keeps them clean and flat.
Rubbermaid bins work well for storing three-dimensional objects. Set out a tarp in a corner and allow your outdoor decorations to dry for a week before you store them, or your Halloween decorations may indeed come to life in your bin.
All of those lovely, cute, kid-made decorations? Scrap them. By that, I mean put them in a scrapbook. Place a basket in a cupboard and place the kid-made decorations in the basket after each holiday. At the end of the year, go through the basket and decide which ones you want to keep. If you’d like to display them next year, place them into your file folder or bin. If you want to keep them but you don’t need to display them, place them in a scrapbook. My other cure for mommy guilt? A scanner. Scan all of those items that you’re going to recycle but feel guilty about recycling, and place them into digital files or a digital book.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with tidbits of seasonal decor. I’m a big fan of paring down just to the tried and true decorations, the ones that inspire you, and the ones that bring back fond memories. It takes a lot of time to put up, take down, and maintain decorations.
Decide how all out you really want to go. If you’re not a big decorator but you still like to present a decorated face to the neighborhood, focus on your outdoor decorations. If candles and themes for the table are your thing, create beautiful centerpieces. Life’s too short to stress about Halloween decor. Your entire house does not need to be decorated to the nines. I don’t take beautiful photos for magazines, but if I did, I’ll tell you that around the beautiful centerpieces, just out of the photo, would be piles of laundry.
If you decide to pare down, recycle your seasonal decorations. Someone else who’s just starting out in this decorating-crazed world of ours will want some of your decorations, and they’ll start a new life in someone else’s house.
Related Blogs:
Fall Centerpieces
A Festive Fall Entryway
A Grand Halloween Entrance
Image Credit: karelia