Friends! Friennnnnndss. I am all jazzed up about gift-wrapping this year, and I want to show you why.
Normally my husband and I are down to the wire on the whole gift-purchasing thing, leading to Christmas Eve gift-wrapping. It’s kind of a mess. One year we even secured discount Justin Bieber wrapping paper, which lead to an infamous incident with said paper in which my husband strained his shoulder and sustained an injury that lasted 18 months. And then, of course, all the presents had Bieber’s face on them. So, yeah.
But not this year. No, sir-ee. This year I had capital-P Plans for my wrapping paper. I wanted to get crafty with it. And you know what? It made things way more fun. So fun that I actually purchased gifts on time, just so I could wrap them. And being on time with things this year? I’ll mark that down as a win.
I found that having a set color scheme helped me mix and match my wrapping supplies. I chose light- and dark-colored craft paper, black, white, gold, and red. Here’s what I used (note that I linked to similar items with the same look, in some cases):
- Craft wrapping paper (I wanted brown craft paper, but my local Michaels store only had oatmeal color in stock. I love it anyway. Plus, a whole roll was super cheap.)
- Craft hang tags with white and black ribbon
- Black and white baker’s twine
- A gold Sharpie (this one was specific for marking on clay)
- Clay hang tags/ornaments (handmade. I used Sculpey clay, and here is a great sample pack of colors)
- Various ribbon
- Gold glitter tape (My faaaave. So sparkly.) Here’s a similar one
- Martha Stewart Gold Acrylic Paint
- Rubber stamp of a bunny (from Paper Source a few years back)
- Stamp ink
Here’s the how-to: first things first, I played around with paint, stamps, and markers to make a few simple patterns on my gift wrap. I love how the shine on the gold paint contrasts with the texture of the paper. Swoon. Then I got fancy wrapping things up. I used good old Scotch tape to seal most of the packages, then tied on ribbon and twine as accents. And of course, I sprinkled on the gold glitter tape with glee. I topped off the packages with homemade hang tags and practiced my penmanship on some notecards and craft tags.
As part of this process, I really loved using clay to make hang tags that can be reused as ornaments for a Christmas tree. I simply rolled out the clay between sheets of parchment paper, cut to shape and baked, and then decorated with that gold Sharpie. I think these are such a sweet touch, and a little something extra that makes the package even more memorable. They’re also a throwback to my thirteen year-old self, who baked up a clay crafts business with my besties. We called ourselves B. KAT or something awesome, using our initials. Our logo was a fancy K. And dude, the tiny animal figures and pencil holders we made were rad. But I digress.
Anyway, now I want to wrap all the things. No object is safe from my fervor, though I admit I am still confounded by the perfect crisp-edge fold of professionally wrapped presents. I try, I really do. But wait! Look over here! It’s more glitter. (The art of distraction. See what I did there?)
Happy wrapping, friends!
xo Tanya
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