Handy Tip Tuesday, 1st Edition- Gift bags

This may or may not become a weekly/series, but I needed a title for this handy little tip, and this sounded like a good idea!

Help! I have WAY too many gift bags after bridal showers/my wedding/babies/holidays. What can I do to get it under control, short of throwing them all out or stuffing them into my closet?

Handy tip that worked for me:

I separated all of my gift bags into themes (Christmas, baby shower, wedding, bridal shower, children's gifts, bags for males, bags for females, wine bags, etc) and had a separate pile for each. I only had a few bags that were perfect for guys, so I put those back in the closet. I added a few absolute favorites from the other themes to the closet pile, then got to work with the remaining bags...

I went through each stack and made 3 piles: one for my mother-in-law, one for my mom, and one for me.

One Christmas bag for my MIL, one for Mom, one for me.
One Christmas bag for my MIL, one for Mom, one for me. 
One Christmas bag...

One baby shower bag for my MIL, one for Mom, one for me.
One baby shower bag...

You get the picture.

I had already called them up in advance to find out if they needed any specific types, or if there were any types they did not need. For instance, my MIL often gives wine as a gift, so she and I split the wine gift bags, whereas Mom had a few wedding showers coming up, so I gave her extras.

It worked out great! We all have plenty of bags for future gifts (and I know that we'll be getting some of them back for kids' birthdays and the holidays), and my closet is no longer bursting at the seams.

If you just had a baby, find someone who just got married and swap out bags. Or, with the holidays coming up, swap partially-used wrapping paper rolls so that every fifth gift doesn't look exactly the same.

There you go-- the first edition of Handy Tips Tuesday!