Necklaces, Bracelets & Earrings, Oh My: How To Pack Jewelry For A Move
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Moving is a big undertaking! There’s so much to do before, during and after the moving process. With so much to pack away safely and take account of, you want to be sure that your belongings are packed correctly and in a way that allows you to find specific things easily when you need them. This includes jewelry! Whether your jewelry collection consists mainly of costume jewelry, precious jewels or valuable family heirlooms, these jewelry packing tips will keep your collection untangled, intact and ready to be worn as soon as you like.
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Inspect your jewelry collection
Before you start packing up all of your necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings, inspect and take inventory of the pieces in your collection. Give yourself less stuff to move by going through and seeing if there’s any jewelry you’d like to donate or get rid of. Check to see that you have matching pairs of earrings and full sets of jewelry that are supposed to go together. Ask yourself a few questions first before you start packing everything up. “Does this piece really match my personal style?” “Do I wear this anymore?” “Can I picture myself wearing this in the future?”
Take photos too! Snap some pictures of your jewelry and upload those photos to a safe spot. This way you have an inventory list of all of your jewelry so if something goes missing or gets damaged in the moving process, you’ll know the condition it was in prior to the move and know what you should have with you!
Get creative & resourceful with packing supplies
You do not need to go out and purchase expensive packing bags and materials made especially for holding jewelry. There are lots of things you can utilize that you most likely already have at home or bought previously in preparation for your move! Things like packing paper, small pieces of cardboard, plastic wrap, tissue paper, tape and pill cases.
When you purchase a new pair of earrings they oftentimes come attached to a rectangular piece of cardboard or paper. Recreate this effect with small pieces of thin cardboard, business cards or heavier stock paper. Puncture a hole, fasten the earring by using the metal backing or the clear rubber ones. This will work for stud earrings, dangling earrings, plain earrings, intricate earrings, really any type of earring! Once securely attached to the cardboard, paper or business card, wrap the earring(s) up in packing paper or tissue paper to ward away scratches and keep any small pieces that might fall off contained.
If you have them, pill cases are the perfect partitioned container to use for separating rings, stud earrings and dangle earrings. Simply place the pieces in the divided spaces and close the top!
Above photo by Instagram User @astarrjewelryconcierge
Untangling necklaces is the worst! It’s time consuming, commonly leads to other necklaces also getting tangled up in the mix, and can lead to broken chains or lost charms. Keep your necklaces untangled by using plastic wrap to fix them in place. Lay a necklace out on some plastic wrap, fold the plastic wrap over and press it around that particular necklace. Then repeat for all of your other necklaces! You can keep building on that piece of plastic wrap until all of your necklaces are stored together in one place, but still apart from one another.
For bracelets with lots of dangling pieces and and thin chains, you may want to use the plastic wrap method the same way you did for the necklaces. For other bracelets, like bangles, beaded, cuff, rope and leather, you can get away with wrapping each bracelet up in packing paper individually and taping it closed. Packing paper also works well with rings. Wrap up each ring in soft, packing paper and tape closed. Since rings are so little, it’s a good idea to store all of your rings together in a small box after individually wrapping each one up in packing or tissue paper.
Keep valuables with you
One sure fire way to know that your cherished jewelry collection is safe and in good hands, is to keep it with you during the move. Many moving companies won’t even move jewelry because of how irreplaceable and valuable those items tend to be. They’d rather not touch or move jewelry at all than be held accountable for losing or damaging such sentimental, valuable items.
Make things easier on yourself by labeling all of your boxes, bags and containers. This will give you insight into what is inside of what, not to mention be extremely helpful during the eventual unpacking process. You might end up with multiple containers carrying pieces from your jewelry collection. Label each one of those containers and note that there is jewelry inside. You don’t need to write out, “JEWELRY” in huge letters, you could write a simple letter “j” somewhere on the label. What matters is that you know what it means & where your jewelry is being kept.