Handling the holiday gift influx

Let’s be honest, many of us get a lot of stuff around Christmas time. Some of it we may be super excited about and some of it, like that bag of socks, is a bit less welcome. Either way, while new stuff is great, it usually means that we need to do something with our old stuff to make room for everything. Here’s some ideas for how to organize and store your things when Christmas gifts require you to consolidate!

1) Boxes.

Cardboard boxes are a great way to organize your stuff in a categorized, stackable way. Even better, you can pick up boxes for cheap at your local mailing or moving store. When sealed up with packing tape, boxes can be a great way to keep items safe and clean, even for a long time. Just use a permanent marker to jot down what’s in each box so you don’t forget! Keep in mind, cardboard boxes are not always the most durable, particularly if exposed to water or moisture. So, if you’re storing things in your garage or a leaky basement, consider using a storage tub or plastic box. These can typically be found at home improvement stores!

2) Storage Facilities.

Unfortunately, sometimes we have so much stuff that we can’t fit it all in our own home! That’s why remote storage facilities exist. Most of them charge a monthly fee and give you access to a secure, garage-like personal space. Some of these storage units can be small, only a couple feet wide and five or so feet deep. Others can be large, the size of a one car garage or bigger. These facilities are secure and generally well maintained, meaning that you won’t have to worry about someone breaking into your stuff or water or bugs getting to it.

3) Selling Locally.

Many of us have things that we don’t use regularly, but are actually somewhat valuable. Examples might be grills, bikes, yard equipment, tools, or old furniture. Each of these things, particularly furniture, can take up a lot of space in our house unnecessarily. If you have well kept things that you don’t use often, consider selling them. There are many sites out there, like craigslist, ebay, nextdoor, or simply social media that allow you to sell things online. Not only does it help you clean out your house, but gives you some cash as well!

4) Donating.

Particularly in the cold months of winter, many shelters are looking for useful donations. If you have extra things laying around, particularly clothes and coats, see if you can find a local shelter or charity that you can donate to. Goodwill will work in a pinch too! And, if you donate something with significant value, like a car, you can often write the donation off on next year’s taxes!

Christmas Candy Boxes for Your Holiday

It’s the most wonderful time of the year….for eating yummy treats and goodies! Christmas time is an acceptable time for you to binge out and have all types of sweet treats. Since you’re so busy devouring the goodies yourself, you may forget that sweets also make for great gifts! This is the perfect time to pick out a beautifully decorated candy box that you can gift a loved one. A top gift to think about this year is a personally designed, decorative box that holds any type of candy you can think of. Here are the recommended types of boxes that usually work the best as gifts.

Box 1: Pure Chocolate

Everyone has a chocolate lover in their life. While most people assume that women love chocolate the most, a high majority of men also say that they prefer to receive and eat chocolate if they have to choose a candy. So you really cannot go wrong when getting a chocolate box for someone, as they are sure to like it! When thinking about a box to put together, usually assortments work best.

 

Put together a mix of dark, white, and milk chocolate. If you want to go even more crazy, a huge hit is the sea salt and caramel chocolate, mint chocolate, or even some peppermint bark for the holidays! These types of candy boxes are easy to ship too, since it’s cold out, the chocolate should not melt like it would in the summer so you can rest easy knowing that the sweets will make it there in one piece!

 

Box 2: Christmas Candy

This box is for that Christmas lover in your life, you know, the one who loves a candy cane in their hot chocolate and who love munching on some peppermint bark next to the floor while listening to a Christmas carol. The fun part about this type of box is that you can be creative and express yourself as you put this together. Before starting, go look for other types of Christmas candy and see what unique types are out there!

Hershey kisses are a really popular candy this time of the year and Hershey even make a peppermint bark kiss that you can add in. Or you can find some reindeer shaped animal crackers or elf dots to make this box a true Christmas special. The fun part about these candy boxes too is that you can decorate the outside with red and white or snowflakes and christmas trees and make the box look beautiful.

This article probably put you in the mood to grab a handful of Christmas Mm&s, but the hope is that you can start thinking of how to turn a candy obsession into a beautiful box that will be the talk of your Christmas morning this year.

 

The Usefulness of Cardboard

Have you ever stopped to think about how much use you get out of a commonplace and ordinary item that probably took little time (and few resources) to make? The cheap things in your life that are almost invisible to you on the daily simply because you use them so often?


I try to take in what’s around me on a daily basis as if I’m seeing them anew. This doesn’t always work, of course, as life gets in the way of things and I’m in a rush sometimes to get other things done. But I find that when I stop to just recognize everything around me, I notice some fascinating things.

Take trees, for example. They’re literally everywhere yet sometimes nonexistent to us. And yet without them, we would be the nonexistent ones. It’s a pretty deep and wild thought, I’ll admit, but it’s absolutely true that we take our forests and wooded areas for granted. For all the environmental movements out there that promise to plant a new tree for every _____, there’s a bigger logging company busy churning out the wood and destroying the environment even more.

So when it comes to the everyday, certain things stick out. For me? It’s cardboard boxes. Everytime I come home from work, I see at least one package on a doorstep of someone’s apartment within our courtyard. And these packages are almost exclusively cardboard.

Yet that’s not the only place I see cardboard. At work, we have a lot of carbonated drinks in the fridge. What else would they be housed in but cardboard?

And I know I almost always have something made of cardboard in my truck. From what? I honestly couldn’t tell you, but I’d bet a hundred bucks there’s something made of cardboard lying in my back floorboards.

What is all of this trying to say? Mostly that we fail to see the commonplace things in our lives. This doesn’t just go for tangible objects like cardboard boxes, either. For example, I often dwell on my bad luck. Whether it’s in the video games I play or my luck with traffic lights every morning on the way to work, I often dote on the bad instead of recognizing the good. Good and bad luck likely weigh out to be pretty even in my life, yet the bad always captures my attention.

What little things should you pay more attention to in your everyday life that often escape you?

Distributing Your Baked Goods

If you like to bake around the holidays, you’re not alone. Whether or not you sell your products through a bakery or just like to bake for your family events is irrelevant in the world of baking. Baking just makes sense to some people. It’s fun to plan it out. To prep your kitchen. To create things from absolute scratch that turn into scrumptious and beautiful pieces of food. To eat your delicious creations.

Baking is especially fun for some because it doesn’t go the same way so many other styles of cooking do. There’s grilling, the “art of men” that’s a lot easier than most forms of cooking. Stovetop cooking is another beast with oils, gas burners, skillets, and pots. And then there’s baking things in the oven itself. While throwing together a casserole or meatloaf is typically for dinner, baking confectionaries, cookies, cakes, and other things is quite a different thing altogether. It takes patience. It takes creativity. It takes skill. It takes the know how that a lot of people lack simply because they don’t want to put effort into learning a trade such as this.

So, we’ve established that you like to bake, right? Well, what do you usually house your end products in once they’re done? Tupperware containers are common, of course. Sometimes cardboard donut boxes do the trick very well. But if you’re sending out many different types of cookies and candies, perhaps you should consider candy boxes for your baked goods.

These boxes come partitioned so that your different sweets can be separated from one another, all while staying in place and not shifting around. They’re the perfect type of container for things like chocolates, small cookies, mini cupcakes, and other bite-sized treats.

In addition, a lot come with a film in the middle of the top of the box to see the treats inside. This is always a bonus, especially if you run a bakery. Other people’s curiosity will get the best of them as they peak into someone else’s box, causing them to check out your bakery.

If you’re tired of asking your family members and friends for your tupperware containers back after months of waiting for them to return your belongings, try getting some disposable candy boxes that you’ll never have to ask to be returned again. It’s a win for you. It’s a win for your confectionary recipients. And it’s quite cheap in getting a lot in bulk.

3 Fun Activities That Use Cardboard

Sometimes, the commonplace and everyday items of your house can seem invisible. You almost forget they’re there because, well, you use and see them daily. And it’s especially normal to forget about these things entirely when you’re thinking of ideas to do for crafts or just on your leisure time. Instead, you usually will go out and buy something new rather than repurposing things you already had.

Well, one commonplace thing you can definitely get mileage out of is cardboard. The thing is, getting crafty with cardboard can seem like a tough task. After all, cardboard is used for things like packaging, shipping, and storage, not fun activities, right?

Well, we’re here to provide you with some alternative uses for the cardboard you’ve likely got lying around your house. Check out these three specific ideas for cardboard you may be able to replicate.

Costumes.

Fairy wings, pirate swords, and robot body parts define some of the most iconic Halloween costumes, and they’re all three usually made up of cardboard in the absence of specifically made, store-bought costumes. Sometimes costumes purchased from the store can be low quality or expensive for something of higher quality, so families resort to constructing their own from time to time. What better material to use for some of these costumes than cardboard boxes?

Nintendo Labo.

This is a relatively new thing this year that uses cardboard boxes and video games. Almost seems like an impossible combination, doesn’t it? Well, Nintendo has managed to perfect the idea. While most of the minigames come with cardboard cutouts that you can piece together to make things such as a piano, camera, or other interesting items, you do have the option to make your own things instead of buying the cardboard from Nintendo. They even provide blueprints for their game’s periphery items in order for you to save money.

Cosplay.

Oftentimes you’ll see movies or TV episodes with kids who play fought with cardboard swords or axes. I’m not sure if I speak for everyone here, but this is something I actually have not seen in person,  even when growing up. But a hobby that does use things like this? Cosplaying. The art of cosplay centers around homemade outfits that mirror those from video game and anime characters. Whether the weapons are constructed of cardboard or it’s the intricate outfit pieces, cardboard is quite malleable and shapeable while still retaining its shape, something that makes it incredibly useful for cosplayers.