No matter how prepared you are for your move, some anxieties are difficult to rid yourself of as you pack as well as during the big day. Some personal items, such as precious pieces of jewelry, are small, so they could easily become lost in the chaos of packing, moving, and unpacking.
Parry those troublesome anxieties about your beloved baubles by properly preparing your jewelry collection for transit. Preparations begin during the packing stage, so educating yourself on some of the most helpful tips for packing jewelry during a move will keep your worries at bay and allow you to focus on more important things.
Preparing your jewelry for your move isn’t difficult so much as it is tedious. However, the more careful you are with your moving preparations, the smoother the process will go. Begin by categorizing each piece in your collection by its type and determining whether it can travel with others or not. Some baubles may be able to bump against others with very little danger to either one’s appearance, but others—such as extravagant rings or necklaces with dangling pieces—would face too many risks if transported next to another item.
Once you’ve finished neatly organizing your collection, start putting each piece in its place, whether it’s in a resealable bag, a pillbox, or your jewelry box. You can group individual pieces of jewelry in larger resealable bags if you place them in small resealable bags first. Label your bags whenever you feel it’s necessary—you know your own organization methods best, after all.
Jewelry on its own doesn’t take up that much space—your entire collection can likely fit in your car or a small suitcase. Whether you make one trip or a few trips, it’s always better to transport the collection by yourself without help from a moving company. No matter how much you trust the movers you’re working with, jewelry is far easier to lose when it’s in someone else’s hands.
Instead of packing it up and keeping it with the rest of your stuff, pack your collection separately and take it to the new home yourself. Put the box somewhere hidden away, but not so much that you forget about it. Somewhere such as your bedroom closet will provide a secure location that’s out of the way for movers.
Even after you’ve stored your jewelry pieces in their containers, they’re still not completely safe from the dangers of moving—especially if you’re allowing the movers to transport it. To ensure nothing happens to anything in your jewelry collection during transit, treat any jewelry box or organizer as you would a dresser and tape it up. Seal the drawers shut with tape, cover the top of each drawer with plastic wrap, and clamp boxes shut with rubber bands or mini bungee cords.
It’s just as important for you to seal the inside as it is to seal the outside—you don’t want each piece of jewelry bumping into another or shifting around. Bag each bauble in a resealable bag before you seal the container just to be safe.
If you must leave your jewelry collection to the movers, take measures to protect it from insidious types. One such solution is to mislabel the box in which you transport the precious goods on purpose. This way, only you will know what’s actually in the box—it’s not actually “cutlery” or your “train collection”; it’s your valuable rings, bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. Whatever you label the box, be sure to think of something just as fragile as jewelry that would make the same noise or weigh about the same. If you have a jewelry armoire, pack it separately from your collection to throw off any potential thieves.
You can’t find every solution in a resealable bag, unfortunately. Some larger pieces in your collection may require something different, and fragile pieces may require extra care. Before you go out and buy tools specifically to make your life easier once you unpack, consider some things you may have around your house and reuse them to safely transport your jewelry.
If you have straws or coffee stirrers around the house, then you can transport your necklaces without tangling the chains. All you have to do is pull one end of the chain through the straw and hook it to the other end for easy, tangle-free transportation. You may need to cut down the straw before looping the necklace in—you don’t need to stretch or bend the straw to keep the necklace straightened out. Any stress on the straw or necklace could put your jewelry in danger, so be sure to keep it to a minimum. This tip also works with chain bracelets!
If you have foam around your house that you’re not sure what to do with—such as the foam that protects electronics or furniture pieces in their packaging—you can reuse it to transport loose earrings for which you have no packages. Just poke the earrings through the foam and seal them with the back.
Big buttons also work well for keeping earrings together—all you have to do is poke the earring through one of the holes in the button and clamp it shut. Keep a pair together or keep a set of four earrings together; either way, it will keep them safe.
Rings are easy to store together if you put them on a string or pipe cleaner. Tie the loop shut once you’ve secured all the rings together. If you’re worried about them clashing, tie the string around each ring once or twice before tying the loop closed.
The most valuable or sentimental pieces of jewelry shouldn’t stay in boxes—no matter how secure they are. Whenever you’re concerned about the safety of your accessories, the most helpful tip for packing jewelry during a move is to keep it with you when you go between houses. For example, wear your rings or store them in a travel ring holder to keep the most precious members of your jewelry collection nearby on moving day.
Don’t stress yourself out panicking about where your valuables are during a move—keep yourself calm by preparing ahead and taking the pressure off of moving day.
