I was recently approached by BooHoo.com who asked if I would like to take part in their Rio Olympics inspired blogger ‘games’.
I was nominated the ‘sport’ of Bag Diving, by which you have to fit the most items into your bag, in a Mary Poppins or Hermione Grainger sort of way. I decided to try and pack for a weekend away in one of their fashion backpacks, which turns out was surprisingly easy once I got my savvy packing head on.
*This is not a paid for blog post – however the items shown were gifted to me.
The bag itself is the Maisie Metal Detail Backpack £18, link here, which honestly did not look large in the photos on BooHoo. When I got my hands on it my first reaction was, ‘how the hell could I ever fill this?’, as I really had not anticipated on it being as large as it was.
The size is perfect on your back. Not too big, not too large, but the inside of the bag was ridiculously large.
Not only did I fit my whole outfit in, as I’ll show later on, I got my entire make up collection, 50+ bottles of nail varnishes, two hoodies, and 5 books. I could only empty so many of my belongings in it before I considered how long it would take me to put everything away, but yeah, it would be a fantastic bag for shopping or a few days away.
Playsuit, Belt, Sunglasses, Chain – c/o BooHoo.com (combined less than £30!)
Ok, let’s get down to the real business. Packing – the difference between quickly and efficiently finding what you need, and having to tip all of your belongings out in a frustrated rage only to find that you’ve snapped your sunglasses.
So how do ensure that all of your belongings are as safe as possible?
First off we’ll deal with the belt and the sunglasses. These sunglasses which came without a case are just an accident waiting to happen, so if you can’t wear them on your head, and if you can’t put them in the front zip of your bag, put them in two socks to make sure that they don’t get scratched.
And seeing as you’re going away for a weekend and that means two pairs of socks, roll your belt up and put them inside socks too, it’ll keep it all rolled up and neat, and will stop the prong from damaging anything.
Packing necklaces can the ultimate pain in the butt. Not anymore, my friend! Grab a straw, and pull one side of the chain through the straw and do up the catch. Your necklace can not physically become a ball of tangled up sadness. You’re welcome.
And for my next trick…
Head to the kitchen and grab some sandwich bags. Roll up your outfits as tight as you can and put them in the bags. This could be: a dress and some tights, t-shirt and leggings, top and material shorts. And you can even include your undies.
So when you oversleep and need to do some intense bag diving, just feel around for a little bag and ta-da you have your entire outfit ready to throw on (that’s another sport for another day).
Once I had packed three outfits into little sandwich bags I realised that I had barely used up any of my bag. In the end I just started shoving in it whatever I could find (I don’t have photos of this process) but in the end I packed enough for at least one week! Move over weekender bags, your purpose has just been destroyed.
I hope you picked up some packing tips to help organize, and remember the three staples of a happy handbag – socks, straws, and sandwich bags.
