Hopefully this has arrived by now

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

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!

One sticker wrapping

The only adhesive holding this wrap on is the flower sticker on the front. I saw loads of stores wrapping with just on piece of tape or sticker when I was in Japan.

Handling It

When I wrap purses or lunchboxes or anything with handles, I love to leave the handles out. This one was a soft bag, so the shape was hard to manage.

Puzzler Father's Day Card

I made this card for my husband. He really is "1 in a million". The scan loses the nice colors of the card which looks black, but is actually choclate brown. The greens are much nicer than they appear in this image, too.

Tea for two on Father's Day

 
Our Dads love tea so we purchased them some great teas at the Queen Anne teacup, found some nice tins and created lovely labels for (I regret not taking snaps of those). I found some mailing tubes at the Paper Zone, dropped the tea tins in, wrapped and ran out the door. I like the way they turned out. Festive and remind me of bamboo.

A decent picture is worth so much more than words

This is a very poor shot of my Dad's present which he'll be unwrapping tomorrow, so I won't have time to take a better shot.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but this is wrapped with layers of paper. The layers shift at the crease and move up slightly to add a little interest. Stars are some leatherette (hah) "Do-Jiggies".

I'll do over and post with instructions later...with a better picture.

Throwing money at the problem

Hog tying I can handle, but bow tying is another matter...they go wonky on me several times before I can make them passable. One way around this is to secure the ribbon with something other than a bow. In this case I used an asian coin (origins unknown)


Here's how the full package looked.

Scrappy Ribbon

Because of my organizing challenges, I often have the chance to get creative. I'll have a lovely piece of ribbon that's just the right shade and texture, but a bit too short to wrap and tie a bow for my package. Here's a sneaky trick...just do a partial ribbon wrap. For this package I tied it in back and pulled the ribbon length to the front and affixed it with a glue dot. I finished the front with a Jolee's Boutique snowflake sticker. I then trimmed any excess ribbon off the knot in the back.

Scrappy Wrap

Seems like I always have loads of lovely scraps of paper left over from wrapping other presents. Purty as they are, they just aren't big enough to wrap a whole gift. So I do what any self-repectin' scrappy lady would...I cheat. I find 2 (or more) papers that look good together and work with it. In this package I only had enough of the gingko leaf paper to cover the ends and only enough of the green paper to cover the middle.

Dot 2 Dot

Another variation on the dot wrap. This time the package includes ribbon and a little copper monogram purchased at a scrapbooking store.

Dot to dot - another ribbonless wrap

Grab yourself some cheap wrapping paper (the stuff I used is from Ikea) and a 3/4-inch Marvy hole punch (or whatever punch you have) and save the ribbon for your hair. Here's how to wrap this...

And here's another variation on this wrap

I feel pleaty...oh so pleaty

This a good one for the perfectionists out there. They will have much tidier pleats than I did on this one. Some alternate views of this wrap.
Materials used:

• plum mulberry paper
• scraps of pearlized tissue paper for flowers and pleat accents
• tape/glue/glitter glue
• Flower Paper Punch

Eventually I'll add steps.

The Running Stitch Wrap

One of my favorite easy wraps. All you need are the ususal suspects (paper, ribbon, and tape) and a hole punch that makes a hole large enough to thread your ribbon through. More about how to wrap this...

Simple Net

Materials used:

• shimmery green tissue for underlayer
• red produce net over tissue
• red beading wire
• vintage beads

Adding pleats when wrapping the tissue layer adds nice texture.