14 Ways Eco Modern Concierge Professional Organizers & Personal Assistants Can Help You During the Holidays

THE HOLIDAYS ARE RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER and they will be here before you know it. We are almost already fully pre-booked for the 2023 holiday season. Many clients have hired us to help 2-4 hours once a week from October - December to help with various holiday tasks and relieve some holiday stress. If you are interested in this, please reach out and we would love to help you. 

As many of you know, we do a TON of gifting wrapping for residential and commercial clients where we come to your place of work and wrap presents during the holidays. This is great for company culture, helps relieve stress during the holidays and is perfect for you and your team. Please reach out for more information. We have several companies already pre-booked for gift wrapping services for their employees.

Some tasks that we often get asked to help with during the holidays:

1. Gift wrapping
2. Decorating
3. Shopping & various errands
4. Delivering of gifts
5. Shipping
6. Coordinating service people
7. Making reservations
8. Coordinating the delivery of various goods and services
9. Prepping second homes for the holidays
10. Assist guests while they are in town
11. Help with set up and clean up at parties & events
12. Getting organized throughout your home & business
13. Gathering card lists, addresses and mailing holiday cards
14. Prepping invitations
15. The list goes on & on.... 

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Gift Wrapping Tips & Tricks

 

At Eco Modern Concierge we are gift wrapping experts and we help residential and business clients all over Houston and beyond with their gift wrap needs. From shopping, organizing gift wrap, organizing the gift wrap process, meeting deadlines and trying to get things done early, etc. It can be a tedious time consuming thing that many people do not want to do. So if this is something you don't like doing consider hiring a professional organizer or concierge to help you get this task done. 

• Always use excess ribbon.
• It is best to use a medium to heavy grade paper. 
• If you are doing special things to your presents like pleating the paper buy paper that has grids. 
• Buy gift wrap & ribbon at the end of the season when it is inexpensive and practice, practice, practice. 
• There are many ways to measure paper so you get the exact amount like going 2/3rds up the side, measuring 1/2 from the middle of the box, using a ruler (handy on large packages), etc. 
• Measure ribbon by getting a tail on the ribbon and measure 5x by the longest edge. You would rather have too much than too little ribbon. 
• Place the top of the package facing down when you are wrapping. 
• Use fabric scissors only on ribbon, not gift wrap.
• Use double stick tape to get the no edge look.
• Use clear twist ties to secure special bows and embellishments.

You can shop all gift wrapping essentials on the Eco Modern Concierge shop page. 

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Eco Modern Concierge Gift Wrapping Essentials & Cart Organization

At Eco Modern Concierge we specialize in all things holiday from decorating to wrapping and every single thing you can think of in between. As professional organizers and concierges in Houston, TX it is our job to make sure we have some of the essentials on hand. 

Cart: I like a simple cart that is mobile, so you can move it from room to room. 

Cart Trays: These are great for organizing the inside of your cart. 

Wrapping Paper Storage Bin: This is my favorite wrapping paper storage bing because it holds tall wrapping paper rolls.

Regular Scissors: I like to use regular scissors for cutting paper products.

Fabric Scissors: I like to use fabric to cut fabric products like ribbon. 

Elf Cutter: This is a relatively new product that I got last year and it does work great once you get the hang of it.

Regular Tape: Regular tape is great for wrapping up packages. 

Double Sided Tape: Great for heading seams on wrapping paper

Super Sticky Tape: for things that are hard to stick to like glitter paper.

Wrapping Paper: An essential.

Tissue Paper: You can wrap gifts with it, use it as box stuffing or bag stuffing.

Boxes: Needed if you are wrapping clothing or items that are better in a bag.

Bags: If you don't want to wrap presents.

Tags: Needed so you know what gift goes to whom.

Ribbon: The perfect accessory for any gift.

Bells, greenery, berries, pinecones, etc.: Needed if you want to dress up any package. 

Hot Glue Gun: Makes putting on flowers and package accessories easier as it can cover imperfections and knots made by ribbon.

Straightener: This is a tip, use a straightener to straighten wrinkled ribbon.

Slap Bracelets: Great for keeping wrapping paper rolls and some ribbon rolls together. 

Clear Twist Ties: These are extremely helpful when attaching bows or accessories to packages.

Bow Maker: If you need help making bows, I suggest getting and using a bow maker.

Glue Dot Roller: Great when when you a little something to stick to help you wrap gifts.

Wrapping Paper Cutter: Perfect for helping tear paper especially if you have a small amount.

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The Ultimate Holiday Essentials Bag for Holiday Concierges and Professional Organizers

We help clients year round with all of their concierge and professional organizing needs, but we are experts in all things holiday related and it is one of our busiest times of year. We do everything from decorating to shopping to gift wrapping to getting organized before guests come and the list goes on and on and on. We are located in Houston, TX, so we often get a lot of requests. Below is a list of products and essentials we like to keep on hand during the holiday season for every little thing that we may need when it comes to decorating and random other little things.  We hope you find this list helpful. What are things that you like to keep on hand during the holiday season? You can shop all of these items on the Eco Modern Concierge Shop page as well. 

Gardening bag: This is the bag I currently use to store everything because it has lots of pockets. 

Gloves: A necessary to not cut your hands and arms up when decorating especially with live tress, garlands and wreaths.

Double sided tape: A gift wrapping essential.

Regular tape: Another gift wrapping essential.

Glue Dot roller: Perfect for gift wrapping and helping various things stay in place. 

Super sticky tape: Great for glitter wrapping paper or things that really need to be stuck down. 

Super glue: To fix broken items.

Scissors: I have talked about these scissors for a long time and really like them.

Fabric scissors: To only be used used on fabric. 

Velcro: Perfect to wrap cords and hold various things in place.

Command hooks in varying sizes: We use command hooks ALL the time with various holiday projects. We love using the small, regular, gold / silver, cord wraps, etc. 

Nails: You never know what you will need to nail down. They are great for hanging various things like garland, wreaths, etc. 

Tacks: We use tacks for all kinds of things like securing ribbon to windows, securing wreaths to doors, etc. We use various colors like white, green, silver and gold.

Floral wire: This is a MUST in our bag because we use it to tie garland on banisters, rails, hang wreaths, etc. We usually carry green and silver wire.

Zip ties: These are necessary for your holiday bag and we use them most often to tie garland to banisters and securing lots of garland parts together.

Clear twist ties: perfect to secure various things like bows on decor, gifts, etc.

Beaded flexible ties: I like that these have notches and you can use them for various things like lights, garland, etc.

Flexible twist ties: These come in green and white and perfect to secure cords or various things that need to stay together.

Twist ties: 

Garland ties: These green pine ties are also great for tying garland in various places. 

Fishing wire: Perfect for hanging things like wreaths when you don't want string to show from afar or to use to hang other decor items.

Banister clips: Great for securing various things to the banister

Wreath picks: These are wonderful to have on hand because they help fill in areas of wreaths & garland that have fallen off through the years, great to add to presents, etc. Here are pinecone picks and berry picks.

Mallet: We always keep a mallet on hand to secure nails, put stakes in the ground, fix things, etc.

Ornament hooks: You can get standard in expensive ones or we love these decorative ones we saw at Target this year that come in gold and silver. 

DW40: A necessary to have on hand always.

Batteries: A necessary to have on hand during the holidays because you never know what remote, decor item, toy, etc will need a battery.

Wreath suction hangers: Great when putting wreaths or hanging items on glass windows, doors and mirrors. They come in various weight holds 10lbs and 20lbs.

Wreath hangers: We keep these on hand because we never know when a client may need one.

Magnetic wreath hangers: These are wonderful for hanging wreath and other items. Please the magnets are usually pretty strong.

Slap bracelets: Helps keep wrapping paper and various ribbon rolls together. 

Beeswax lubricating compound: Great for using with scores, 

Stick um: Candle adhesive, which is great for keeping candles in place inside of holders.

Straightening iron: To unwrinkle ribbon and various holiday decor. 

Hot glue gun: Great for putting embellishments on presents, wreaths, garlands, and various other holiday decor. 

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Ribbon Favorites

 

Since we are professional organizers and a concierge company / holiday concierge experts. We wrap a ton of presents and love it. These are some client favorites and ribbon we love using. 

Ivory ribbon with gold trim: This is always a popular ribbon we use because it is actually really pretty and it a great piece for 100 yards of it.

Red silk ribbon: This is a classic that we use with client gifts every year. 

Red and white striped: I love this ribbon and think it is a classic look.

Chiffon silk ribbon with frayed edges:  I love this ribbon because it is so delicate and feminine.

White grosgrain ribbon fringe edge: This is a pretty ribbon with I love the gold fringe ribbon.

Blue chiffon silk ribbon with frayed edges: Just like the ivory one above, but in various shades of blue. So pretty.

Grey and gold ribbon: So pretty and it is wired, so you can make pretty bows with it.

Velvet ribbon: These come in various sizes, but I love velvet ribbon.

Green yarn ribbon: I have used this for years and love it. 

Baker's Twine: Always a fun, simple way to wrap up packages or layer on other ribbon.

Blue jute: Perfect for Hanukkah or just a winter wonderland theme. 

Green and ivory ribbon: We used this at a client's house recently for Christmas decorations and it looks great. 

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Houston Professional Organizer // Gift Wrap Organization

 

We love organizing gift wrap stations! As a professional organizer, I think I love them so much because you can see such fun transformations. A lot of people have their gift supplies just all mixed in with each other or it is just very chaotic, so the transformations are always awesome. Some people have a lot gift wrap, while others have hardly anything. Having your gift wrap organize is always good because you can find exactly what you need when you need it. I find that most of my clients are usually in a hurry when they need gift wrap supplies because it is usually when they are headed out the door and need to bring the gift with them. Also, with the holidays right around the corner you want to make sure everything is all organized. We love working with this client because they are the absolute sweetest, well most all of my clients are!

We did not use any product in this area and just used what they already had. So here is what we did: 

1. We sorted like items together 
2. Rainbowed the ribbon
3. Put various bags and boxes together
4. Put tissue all together and rainbowed it
5. Got rid of anything that was torn or clearly trash
6. The drawers were long enough and deep enough that we could keep all the rolls of wrapping paper together. 

I love rainbowing a lot of areas, you probably know that if you have worked with or have seen our projects. Rainbowing when it comes to ribbon and tissue is especially helpful because usually you are trying to perfect gifts with tissue, ribbons or bows based on color. 

How do you organize your gift wrap?

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My Container Store Gift Wrapping Favorites 2020

 

Being a professional organizer and holiday concierge in Houston, TX it is part of my job to stay on top of what the latest is of a lot of things, including gift wrapping since we do a ton of gift wrapping and buy a lot of gift wrapping products for clients. Below are some of my favorite gift wrapping supplies from The Container Store. This year it appears their stock is much lower than past years, but they definitely still have some great finds.

Blue Wrapping Paper: I saw this wrapping and immediately loved it for the clients I will be helping wrap Hanukkah presents for. 

Wrapping Paper Holder: This wrapping paper holder is a must for gift wrap. Always choose the tallest wrapping paper holder like this one for those large rolls. 

Red & White Grosgrain Ribbon: I love using grosgrain ribbon for so many things and I think this red and white one is a classic. 

Adhesive Roller: Makes taping down packages so much easier. 

Scandinavian Boxes: I had not seen these before and thought they were cute for the holidays.

Vintage Wrapping Paper: I love the classic vintage paper and The Container Store has a lot of them this year. 

Elf Gift Wrapping Cutter: I got this last year and was skeptical, but once you get the hang of it, it actually works really well. 

Holiday Tags: I thought these holiday tags were cute and simple. 

Gold Glitter Decorative Tape: I thought this would be fun to decorate packages with and it comes in other colors as well. 

Super Tape: If you have never used this tape, it is ultra sticky and works great for glitter wrapping paper. 

Splatter Wrapping Paper: Another fun option for my clients who celebrate Hanukkah.

Beer / Drink Bags: I thought these were so cute and perfect if you would be attending any type of gathering this year. 

Wine Bag: There is a decent selection of wine bags this year, but I liked this one. 

Grey Ribbon: I loved this ribbon with the gold edge.

Gift Wrapping Cart: Lots of clients have this and I think it is great to keep wrapping supplies organized and the bonus is you can move it easily from room to room.

Vintage Santa Wrapping Paper: Once again I loved this vintage wrapping paper. 

Gift Box: I really liked this simple brown box with a red ribbon and thought it would be perfect for a gift card or something small. 

Merry Money Holder: Simple and cute money holder for those that make gift giving easy.

Gift Tags: I guess I like simple, clean lined things like these gift tags.

Gold Seals: I liked these seals to seal envelopes or baked goods boxes and bags. 

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EMC on Blogs This Week

EMC was featured on 2 popular blogs this past Monday Camille Styles & Veronika's Blushing where I give organizing tips. Go check them out and happy organizing!

Camille Styles: I offer tips on staying organized with holiday gifting
http://camillestyles.com/living/life-lessons/a-professional-organizers-guide-to-gifting/

Veronika's Blushing: There is before and after photos of a pantry organization project I did and tips on how to organize your pantry. I will also be a regular contributor on there as well.
http://www.veronikasblushing.com/2015/11/organizing-pantry-eco-modern-concierge.html

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