Xmas Light Storage Holders

Rule number one when packing up christmas lights: Never roll the lights up without wrapping them around something, otherwise they will become tangled! Unlike winding up normal cables (like extension leads) this way, the lights will get caught on each other very easy, so then it'll be even worse to attempt to untangle them then.

The way around this is to use some form of holder. These cord, or christmas light holders can be purchased from hardware and discount shops, however there usually $1-2 each. Since i need 30+ of them, I don't think that's very cost effective.

Instead, for just under $5 Australian, I was able to get a 1200mm x 600mm x 3mm thick sheet of MDF board:

Then with the help of a saw, it later turned out to look like this:

That sheet was cut up in to 12 x (45mm x 10mm slices) and 6 x (30mm x 10mm slices). You can make them any size you want really. I went for 45mm long since it's just under the length of the cardboard box I use to store all the wound up lights in. That way there's less wasted space in the box. Then the shorter 30mm version was made with the left over bit.

So then the finished product, with the lights looks like this:

As for can see, it's an absolute work of art and you can see how badly a Jigsaw works when you don't have a saw bench or circular saw for cutting straight lines. Not that it really matters though once it's packed up :)

Of course you don't even need to use wood, chopping up cardboard boxes will do the same job. The only downside to using cardboard is that it tends to curl and degrade fairly easy.

Well that's it!

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