Inexpensive and fresh wrapping ideas at Country Living Magazine

Instructions and details on Country Living

DIY for holidays

Fun package bows made using recycled shopping bags at Design Sponge


Kate's Paperie has patterns for lovely ornaments and boxes


Carlos n Molinas' site is such fun to browse and has an amazing variety of paper objects, like these paper balls.Instructions here
select "tutorials" and then choose the ball ornament.

Japanese Packaging Design

Ping Mag has some noteworthy posts about Japanese packaging.

Really enjoy this post about packaging that uses and/or imitates nature


And this post on packaged gifts is also lovely

Lovely origami boxes and instructions

Happened across Fitful Flog today, it features so many lovely origami boxes with crease patterns.

Helpful illustrated Japanese wrapping instructions

Shimojima in Japan has a nice collection of how-to photos and illustrations. It's also a great source for ideas.

Check out their "wrapping clips". They are pdf's with step-by-step photos. The instructions are in Japanese, but the photos give so much info you don't need to read Japanese to find these useful.

Also nice is this page of links to illustrated step-by-step instructions for a few methods of wrapping and creating bows, including on the diagonal (like they do in department stores in Japan.

And for idea shopping, these images of the techniques taught in their various wrapping classes.

Save a trip

Wrap with what you've already got. Wrap Art has lots of ideas. They were recently featured on the cover of Craft Magazine.

Nice furoshiki tips from Kakefuda

Found this nice video where Kakefuda, who makes the most beautiful and modern furoshiki in Kyoto, shows a few ways to tie furoshiki


Also found a few illustrated instructions for tying on their site (instructions are in Japanese) as well as a page with images of them in use:

Petit Bag (seen late in video above)
Drop Bag (as seen in video above)
Shopping Bag(seen in video above)
Notebook Bag
One-knot Wrap
Two-knot Wrap
Four Corner Wrap
Cylinder Wrap
Two Bottle Wrap

Japanese Furoshiki Video

Appears to have been created as part of the Mottainai furoshiki effort by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment to encourage people to use furoshiki rather than disposable bags.

Note: Some wrapping instructions start about 43 seconds in and end at 1:06.

Hopefully this has arrived by now

It's a present for my sister's birthday.

A few new favorite things....

Step into our home office and you'll see I have a bit of a paper fetish. A new favorite is cards from ThePaperPrincess.com . A few arrived in the December Sampler and I promptly ordered more. They arrived today - the quality of the paper is luscious — a smooth satiny matte that takes ink nicely. The images, colors, and patterns are sweet without being sappy. Fresh without trying to be hip.

Tasty Sourdough? Until 2 weeks ago that was an oxymoron for me. But then I tasted the fantastic Sour Rye bread at Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle. The owner was the captain of the GOLD medal team in the World Baking Competition in Paris. If you go there, you won't be able to miss the ginormous trophy sitting on the counter. The place is still fairly new. When I went, the sign was just handlettered on a piece of paper taped to a sandwich board. You'll find it just a few doors south of Northwest Art and Frame in the Junction.

Bento Boxes

I love packing my son's lunches in bento boxes. They are reusable; they keep the food in good shape; and they help make lunch more fun and attractive. They make it fun for me and that's important, dammit -- because making lunch every night is boring!

We just bought this Shinkansen bento box at the Sanrio store at Bellevue Square.

We bought this Pokemon bento box during our trip to Japan last year

Feeding a 7 year old food critic

One night after returning home from working late, I found this little critique of the Fontina cheese I had purchased waiting for me in the refrigerator. A very poor image due to the dim light and my inept use of my new camera, I'm afraid. I was told the green colored blob is someone who died from eating the cheese. The face on the bottom is someone who "is sick and will likely die" from eating this cheese. I like the coining of the term "off-demand". I use it all the time now.

School has started and it's back to making lunches. I've decided to start keeping a log of all the lunches I make - since it consumes more of my energy and time than I would like.

This lunch menu: Prosciutto,Turkey & Havarti Wraps; cherry tomatoes from our garden; and kiwi/huckleberries - plus milk and a secret tiny ritter bar hidden in his lunch box.

Furoshiki Tips

Recently found another helpful furoshiki wrapping guide
.

This site also took me to a great photoblog with loads of interesting images taken in Japan.

Origami plus

I love origami - but I can't make anything that doesn't already have a pattern. Check out the what MIT students created for the MIT Origami contest

Artful Manhole Covers...err...Hatchcovers

Seattle Utilities has a new hatchcover design (will hatchcover really ever catch on?)


Here are some lovely utilitylids/ manhole covers /hatchcovers I saw in Japan recently. Looks like there are loads of Japanese manhole appreciation sites: Frangipani has a striking collection , here is a collection of Tokyo manholes...even quilts inspired by Japanese manholes

Kamakura


Iga Ueno


Samurai District, Kanazawa


Shitamachi,Tokyo


Kyoto


Takayama


Having Trouble remembering...wonder if it was Kanazawa

Squeezable Mimi balls

During my recent travel to Japan I came across this interesting stress reliever. You really should click on the image and view it at the larger size so you can note other variations of the mimi ball (keychain, wristpad, etc.) and have a good look at the text on the display box. They appear to be selling rather well. According to the signage it's a great toy for ages 5+....ooooh baby!

What to do when the box is huge?

My mom's present required a VERY large box. So large that I couldn't find any nice paper that would fit. So, I ditched paper altogether and just used decorative tape and a funky Target Christmas ornament...and I was pretty pleased with the results. The tape was pretty hard to cut - probably pretty apparent by looking at the picture, so next time I would cut in ways that don't require precision.

Sampling of this year's holiday packages

This is how I wrapped my friend Jen's gift. I have all the steps photographed...let me know if you'd like to know how this was wrapped. By the way this paper was from DZINZ( possibly here...not sure)



This is how I wrapped a Japanese iron teapot and trivet (testsubin). This is sort of a variation of the previous wrap except I used Mizuhiki and I worked to keep the lovely washi borders intact and visible on the sides and across the top.



This is how I wrapped a gift certificate we gave my parents. I like to use those flimsy plastic boxes that the holiday cards come in. I wrap the gift cert in a pretty tissue with a nice sticker to hold it, then slide it into the plastic box and wrap. They are usually the perfect size and it actually looks quite nice!

It's that wrapping time of year

Last year this time I was so much better about posting wrap ideas...I need to get back on it!

Making holiday cards

As ususal, I haven't started my holiday cards yet...when will I learn? Impress has some great card ideas. PhotoWorks has some nice cards, too. Paperzone has some interesting holiday crafts. I especially like these icicle boxes.