Author Archives: Andrej Zivor

3 Ways to Maximize Your Decorations Storage During the Winter Holidays

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Christmas makes me think of my mom pulling out the decorations from under the staircase just before Thanksgiving would come around. Her storage typically consisted of big, long cardboard boxes containing her 7-or-so synthetic Christmas trees.

Of course, there were other containers and boxes of ornaments, decorations, and wreaths—but Christmas, to me, felt like a house with long brown boxes strewn about. I even recall it being hard to walk around the house simply because everything was so crowded and out in the walkways. Nothing embodied the Christmas spirit better than getting ready for the season with decorations and the house undergoing a lot of change.

Here are a few tips on getting the most out of the boxes you may have to store away winter holiday decorations.

Ornaments.
While the delicate orb ornaments a lot of people think of when it comes to Christmas are better off left in the boxes they came in (usually partitioned cardboard boxes), your random assortment of baby’s 1st and Hallmark ornaments can be piled into whatever size boxes you have available.

Tip: try layering your ornaments with a piece of fabric/felt. This will make sure they don’t get tangled and don’t chip off just from being picked up and moved around.

Trees.
As already mentioned, almost everyone seems to have a fake tree in a big box, whether it’s the one that the tree came in or otherwise. If you’ve misplaced your original tree box or time has simply gotten to it (or mice), try repurposing leftover boxes from house appliances. They’re usually big enough to do the job.

Lights.
Stringed lights define Christmas time pretty much better than anything. But when it comes to putting them away for the year, they can be a hassle. The first thing you should probably do is wrap them in a coil so that they’re easy to store and easy to untangle for the years to come. Again, boxes do wonders here, allowing you to stack different coils of lights in each without worry of them tangling with one another.

So, if you’ve got a few spare boxes lying around the house, put them to use! Don’t even think about discarding them or burning them—you know there’s always a section of your house or season of the year that could use some organizing. Think seasonally! Any holiday can surely spark your imagination to consider putting things away neatly. What most people regard as fodder for fire or simply trash, you can use for tidiness.

Some Fun Ideas for Crafting with Cardboard

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Sometimes we have an excess of commonplace materials lying around the house just begging to be thrown away. Too often we do throw those items away because of the clutter they cause and how useless they’ve become.

However, sometimes it’s better to repurpose some old, mundane items. People create some pretty extraordinary things out of ordinary items, so why couldn’t you, too?

Well, cardboard boxes are one of those everyday materials that we find just sitting in a corner of the house fairly often. Rather than relegate them to the same old storage use as always, why not try getting a little crafty as a bonding experience with your kids? We’ve come up with a few interesting ways to use cardboard for artsy projects. Give them a try!

The classic cardboard house.

This one never gets old. Of course, you’ll need some furniture boxes or home appliance boxes for these to be big enough for your kids to inhabit for the day. But it’ll help create the same experience for your kid that you once felt when you were their age.

Get fun with these! Don’t just draw on windows with marker from the outside. Cut out square holes, create a “door” by reusing the door cutout (and even giving it a “hinge”). Even painting the entire outside could make it seem far more imaginative and fun for your kids. Plain brown cardboard houses are boring. Spice it up with some color.

As a bonus, throw a small rug of some sort inside to make it seem like carpet for your kids.

Diorama.

I remember doing this as a school project in elementary school. And while it seemed specific to school, it was one of the neatest projects I remember doing.

A lot of the time, old shoeboxes work for smaller dioramas. But slightly bigger cardboard boxes could increase the possibilities of such a project. The thing about dioramas, though, is that you have to get creative with other household items. Cotton balls worked well as clouds or fog, sticks from outside made fantastic trees. While going to your local arts and crafts store would likely yield much more useful items, try to get your creative juices going and round up a bevvy of weird, useless things around your house.

Just remember . . .

Be creative! These two ideas aren’t much, but you can do so much with cardboard. While boxes are one commonplace item, you want to extend on that idea and gather as much as you can in other everyday resources to really make the most out of your cheap (or free!) project.

Why Monthly Subscription Boxes of Candy are Successful

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Candy is typically associated with children and holidays. If you’re under the age of 13 or it’s Halloween or Easter, candy is prevalent in your life.

What about candy year-round, though? Can you imagine paying for candy every month of the year? Seems to be a bit much, especially with what dentists tell you: don’t eat too much or your teeth will rot.

Just another cog in the fad of subscription boxes.

Well, just like all subscription-based services, candy has found its way into homes on a monthly basis thanks to the subscription box craze. It makes sense, though. Why would other products work on a month-to-month schedule and not candy? Especially when it’s unique, foreign, or seasonal candy that is deemed “exclusive” and “limited edition.”

Thanks to candy boxes, candy is more than just the sweet treat itself. It’s the presentation of that treat, the colors that accompany the sugary snack. Specific art on the boxes can trigger emotions and desires to buy the product because of its look, its statement, or its ability to stand out among other candies. It’s how marketing applies to all sorts of products.

Why these services instead of buying candy at your local grocery?
Why would they be successful in the first place? Why do people desire a lot of candy each month?

It’s not that any one of these services ships out that much candy, really. Spread out over a month, there may be a different treat to have every three days or so. That’s not a whole lot.

What makes it tick, though, seems to be the specialness of it. The feeling of gifting yourself something new and exciting every month is a powerful one, especially to break up the monotony of life. People crave the feeling of opening something familiar but unknown to them.

Another factor is how easy it is to simply sign up for a product and have it delivered to you. No going out of your way to find different candies. No driving to the store. It’s packaged nice and neat for you and sent to you. Sure takes the work off your end, doesn’t it?

When it comes down to it, subscription candy boxes are just another box checked off on the list of “Things to Make into Subscription Companies”. But, just like all the items on that list, it’s a profitable service.Why? Because people want it.

3 Ways to Use Your Neglected Shipping Supplies

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It happens often—you stock up on office supplies, many of those including stuff you can use to ship items, and then the supplies sit there unused for years. You forget about them (much like other home essentials that have been untouched for ages) and they continue to sit there.

What gives? If you’re going to spend the money on supplies, you surely meant to use them at some point, right?

Well, we all have good intentions on most of our purchases. Shipping supplies is no different. Life just . . . gets in the way. But luckily, there are ways to make use of those supplies you once intended to use, and you can have fun using them, too. It may take a tad bit of work on your end, but it almost always guarantees to make someone else (and yourself!) happy in the long run.

  • Send a memento to an old friend. When life gets in the way of your household and items you don’t use, it also tends to impede close friendships. People move away. You fall out of touch. What better way to rekindle a friendship than to randomly send a piece of memorabilia to an old-time friend of yours? Pack it in a box, tape it up, label it, and ship it out. They’ll be surprised and see that you cared enough to think of them.
  • Mail a care package. Whether you choose to send one of these to your elder family members that you can’t always visit or someone you know who’s away at college, care packages are nice little surprises for people that may not always be able to get out and buy snacks and essentials. These also live up to their name in that they show you care when you send them to someone close.
  • Organize your house. Do you have stuff lying around but don’t have a place for it? Think about using some of your cardboard boxes and packaging tape to put away what’s unneeded. You can simply box up the clutter and store it in the attic, basement, or a closet (especially since it’s tough to throw certain things away).

There you have it. Three simple ways to repurpose the shipping supplies you once bought but never got around to using. Whether you’re making an old friend’s day, making your kid at college smile, or decluttering your home, you can be sure to get some use out of these common items that you’ve neglected for too long.

Handmade Valentine’s Day Gift Project…

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When February rolls around, we certainly see no shortage of Candy Boxes on the shelves! Here’s the deal with those retail candy boxes: anybody can go to the store and buy one. A true gift from the heart will always have the element that can only be produced through a labor of love. So hands off those retail hearts! We’re going to show you how to fashion a homemade one in four steps.

For this project, you will require a few things. A box or tin of a desirable shape, confetti (or construction paper and scissors), small cupcake wrappers, candy (or other types of treats) and maybe some paint. The more romantic the colors and theme, the better. White is a good neutral color to choose for your miniature cupcake papers if you’re not sure what the color of the outside of your box or tin will be yet.

So you need your heart first. You are going to require either a box or old tin. A heart shape container is not required however fashioning your gift after a heart is typically desired for this project. If you only have metal tins instead of boxes you should still be fine. Spray paints of various kinds can be used to alter the appearance of the tin. You could try painting the outside of the tin pink and white. Red and white are two colors that also work well for this application. These are the two color schemes most commonly seen with the retail sold heart boxes.

Next, you are going to take around a handful of confetti. Store bought or homemade is fine. Spoiler Alert: homemade confetti is cut up construction paper! The more colorful the better! If you can secure confetti that matches your box, even better! This confetti is going to be placed at the bottom of the box/tin. It provides a liner as well as decoration for your object of affection to enjoy.

Take a stack of miniature cupcake liners (the kind for baking) and place them over top of the confetti that you spread out in the box/tin. These liners are going to be what holds our candies. Put as many as will comfortably fill the surface area of the confetti bed without crowding.

When you place treats into the papers, they can be wrapped or unwrapped. Keeping them wrapped will add an element of surprise. Unwrapping them first will destroy any lingering “retail” motif that you are looking to kill off with this homemade gift! This choice is strictly a matter of personal preference. Baked goods or homemade candies that were never even wrapped could be used in this container. The sky (and your imagination) is literally the limit with this project.

After you finish the box, you can tape it shut and sprinkle some additional confetti on top for an artistic effect. Chances are your loved one will appreciate this homemade box full of sweet treasures far more than a simple store bought one.

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