I pack mine away in the plethora of foam shipping peanuts I get.

I broke down about three years ago and bought some sturdy plastic boxes for putting all the outdoor lights and junk..errr decorations in. These have worked out REALLY well keeping stuff in the garage, and they're "color coded" (Red and Green, Orange and Black for Halloween).

MercuryPDX

Sorry about the long post but I wanted to share something that has worked well for me:

As far as ornaments go, I use foam. I bought some plastic totes and decided I was going to use foam inserts to hold the ornaments in place. I first went to a local hobby store and then a bigger hobby store and foam is outrageously expensive. To combat this problem, I paid a visit to WalMart and bought one of those twin-sized memory foam mattress covers. It has a one-inch layer of memory foam and three inches of regular foam. Given that I have some rather large glass ornaments, I needed at least four inches of foam.

I laid the mattress cover on the floor and traced the bottom of the plastic tote on the foam with a marker. I then used a Dremel tool with a grinding wheel attachment to slice into it. It cuts it like it is not even there. Then I tried to fit it into the tote. I had to make a few extra cuts and then it fit like a charm. I did that twice more to give myself a triple layer of ornaments in that tote. To add some protection, I cut an additional layer of foam off of the mattress cover and split the two foam types up. Using the one-inch layer of memory foam, I created a cover to go between the top layer and the plastic lid.

After I had all parts of the foam cut out, I then gathered like ornaments together. The bottom layer was made of more durable, flat ornaments. I placed the ornaments on the foam as close as I could fit them and traced around them with a marker being very careful not to mark any of the ornaments or touch the lines of other tracings. After that was done, I took the ornaments away and got out my Exacto knife set. I would estimate the depth of the ornament and try to cut only to that depth all around the edges of each ornament. Then, I would use the Dremel with a smaller grinding wheel to cut into the foam again. The grinding wheel is used parallel to the foam rather than perpendicular like it was when I was cutting out the large foam pieces. Anyway, after I had cut out enough foam, I would try to fit the ornament in. If it fit, I moved on to the next one. If it did not, I would use the Exacto knife/Dremel tool combo until if fit.

It seemed to work well for me. We now have all of our ornaments stored that way as well as some of those little villages. For larger ornaments or village pieces, I used spray adhesive and stuck the foam together.

I cannot recall right now what size the totes are but I think two of them (my first two test totes) are 18 gallons each. Using a twin-size mattress cover, I was able to do both 18 gallon totes (3 ornament layers each and one safety layer each) with some foam left over as scraps. The totes were a few dollars each and the mattress cover was bought on sale for around $50.00. I just looked to see if I could find a link and it does not look like they sell the exact kind I bought but they do sell similar ones (for a bit more money). I am not sure of the foam prices elsewhere in the country but here in Columbus, OH, foam can be traded for first-borns or castles built of solid gold. It was a bit of an investment but it saves the headaches of breaking ornaments that are stored in rolled up paper towels or newspapers (as mine were before this).

My only warning is to wear safety goggles in case any of the grinding wheels break (I had a couple go on me) and to always avoid Dremeling your fingers. I went through my first tote and all but the last layer of my second tote with so much as a close call. Then the girlfriend had to burst into the garage to tell me something important. I looked up as I was turning the Dremel off and it cut right into me. The almost comical thing was that it shot skin cells off of me like it would sawdust from wood. It was a cloud of skin cells shooting through my garage. It only scratched the surface of my really dry skin so I was lucky. :)

b01000100

The only thing about this is that shredded paper attracts mold in this part of the country (Raleigh)...even in an attic.

dmccall

@dmccall: I'll have to keep that in mind for future posts. No experience on that front!

Therevan