Have you ever found yourself wondering how to pack your jewelry when you have a LOT of jewelry?? This dilemma was very real for me when Mr. DitL and I bought our new house a little while ago. Here’s what I did to keep my treasures safe in transit.

How to pack your jewelry when you have a LOT of jewelry

My jewelry collection has grown quite a bit in the decade since I last wrote about how to pack your jewelry for a move. That’s good news for the collector in me, but packing a jewelry collection does become exponentially more difficult when you have more jewelry to move.

Something that was new this time was that I couldn’t immediately unpack my collection: I actually waited MORE THAN A YEAR to get my pretties back out, because that’s how long it took for Mr. DitL and I to accomplish the work on our new house that required contractors coming in and out. I didn’t want my treasures on display until our home was done being a work site.

Happily, everything is now out and I’ll have another post for you soon about my spectacular new jewelry storage and display setup. It is GLORIOUS, if I do say so myself.

So how do you pack your jewelry when you have a LOT of jewelry? Carefully, slowly, and strategically.

First I put everything especially fragile or that I wanted easy access to in jewelry travel cases. Thankfully, being a jewelry writer means I have quite a few jewelry travel cases on hand (here are some good ones, if you need recs).

Next, I went to my stash of jewelry packaging (all those small cardboard boxes and tiny plastic bags that any jewelry lover ends up acquiring) and used them to pack everything else that needs the support of a box. Fragile/antique pendants, delicate earrings, etc. Large pieces like statement necklaces and cuff bracelets went in jewelry pouches.

Once all the little boxes and pouches were packed, I bundled them all in shoeboxes.

Not the most glamorous materials, but I am proud to say that I didn’t need to buy a single thing to pack my jewelry for this move: it’s all things I already owned and repurposed jewelry packaging I saved from past purchases.

Next, I packed my pendant necklaces using the drawer liner method of packing necklaces! Thankfully I had drawer liner left over from my last move. I have a whole post on this technique here, so I’m not going to go over it in depth, except to say that it’s still the best way I’ve ever tried to pack a lot of necklaces quickly and safely.

Once my necklaces were all safely rolled up in drawer liner, I stacked the rolls in shoeboxes.

Because I have too many earrings for any jewelry travel case in existence, I used two plastic bead organizers (also leftover from my last move, but originally from a craft store) to pack them all up. I used scraps of drawer liner to cushion the earrings that needed soft padding.

After that, I stacked all the shoeboxes and jewelry travel cases in some plastic boxes from the Container Store (if your jewelry won’t be unpacked immediately, you need to keep air, dust, and water out!) and drove everything over to a relative’s house until the contractors were done at our new place.

You can see how my relief at finishing the packing immediately transitioned to severe separation anxiety when it was time to drop everything off at a relative’s house for safekeeping. I still can’t believe my collection was stuck in those boxes for over A YEAR. I missed my pretties so much!!

That said, it was totally worth it to know that my jewelry collection was safe. If you learn nothing else from this post, learn this: your jewelry should never ever EVER be in the hands of movers.

You can find links for everything I used to pack my jewelry here, in this ShopMy list.

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