I love wrapping gifts and keep a decent stock of wrapping supplies on hand.  Ideally, I’d have a dedicated space where I wrap my gifts and store my supplies.  But, I don’t.  Instead, our guestroom closet serves as a closet and gift wrap central.  I recently gave the “gift-wrap” portion of the closet a makeover to make it mobile and I’m excited to share how you can make your own easy, affordable, mobile gift wrap station too.

The Gift Wrap Closet Before

I put my gift wrap closet together after we moved into our home almost 3 years ago.  We had just moved cities, started new jobs, started our daughter in a new daycare, were doing renovations inside the house and doing a full landscaping job in the backyard.  With so much going on, I didn’t have time to plan the space as thoughtfully as I would have liked.  Against that backdrop, this is what I came up with:

Honestly, it functioned well.   I could easily find and access what I was looking for and keep track of what I had in one quick glance.  But one major feature the set-up lacked was mobility.  Beds make terrible wrapping surfaces, so I take everything to the nearby family room to wrap.  This was not an issue when wrapping a single gift and I only needed one roll of paper, one bow, a card, tape and scissors.  But when I was wrapping multiple gifts at a time (like at Christmas), the lack of mobility required multiple trips for everything I needed.   As Christmas approached this year, I decided to address this issue.

The Goal: A Budget-Friendly, Mobile, Gift Wrap Station

I love the Elfa Mesh Gift Wrap Cart from The Container Store and it would have worked great.

Unfortunately, it was above my budget for this organizing project (especially with shipping and duty fees to Canada).  So, I looked into rolling craft carts such as this, and rolling storage bags such as this.  Both good options, but still more money than I wanted to spend and not exactly what I wanted.  Unable to find what I was looking for, at the price I wanted, I decided to make my own.

My Mobile Gift Wrap Cart

I started with this Sterlite 3 Drawer Cart from Walmart Canada.

It was just the right size and at $31.97, was budget-friendly.  Most importantly, it came with wheels!  Once I decided on this cart, it was just a matter of figuring out how to organize my supplies in it.

The Top Drawer

The same white baskets I was already using (from Dollarama), fit great in the drawers of the Sterlite cart.  I was definitely thinking of this when I decided to go with this option!  In the top drawer, I took my greeting cards out of the boxes and placed them in one of these baskets.  This makes for much easier visibility and accessibility.  I then put two white drawer inserts (also from Dollarama) in the drawer for gift tags and wrapping necessities like tape, scissors and pens.

The Middle Drawer

In the middle drawer, I put my ribbon and bows.  The ribbon is in the white basket, but I had just restocked my bow supply for the holidays and had too many to fit in a matching basket.  So, I used a drawer divider leftover from a different project to divide the space and just let the bows live in the drawer with no basket.

The Bottom Drawer

In the bottom drawer, I placed my Christmas cards in the white basket.  And I used the same white drawer inserts from the top drawer to house my tissue paper and Christmas gift tags.

On Top Of The Cart

On top of the cart, I placed two larger white baskets (from, you guessed it, Dollarama).  One for pretty gift boxes and one for small and medium-sized gift bags.  In the old closet, my gift bags hung on command hooks.  This worked fine but meant I had to take down bags to get to the one I wanted (which was never on top).  Storing them in the basket eliminates having to do this.  I just find the one I want and grab it, easy-peasy.

Back Of The Cart

For large gift bags, I attached a command hook on top of the cart, behind the baskets, and hung them on it.  It’s not positioned traditionally, and still requires I take down bags if the one I want isn’t on top, but since I don’t keep a lot of large gift bags on hand, it works fine.  And of course, I labelled the drawers and baskets so everyone (a.k.a. my husband) can find what they are looking for AND return it to its proper home.

Rolls of Gift Wrap

Finally, for my rolls of gift wrap, I found this cute basket at Homesense Canada for $19.99.  The tension rod system I was using was a great use of space, but it wasn’t mobile.  This basket is large enough to hold all my wrapping and the handles allow me to easily carry all of it to the family room in one trip.  If you keep fewer rolls of wrapping on hand, you can get this storage case from Amazon.ca for $9.99.

Conclusion

And that is how I put together my budget-friendly mobile gift wrap cart.  Because I already had the baskets, drawer divider and inserts, the whole project, including the gift wrap basket, cost $59.00; much less expensive than anything else I found.  It’s a small thing, but having everything in one mobile station, with better access to it all, made gift wrapping easier this year.   And I LOVE anything that makes life easier, especially during the holidays!

Comment below and let me know how you store your gift wrap supplies. And if you liked this post, please share it!

Happy organizing!