It's a Wrap

Get it?!

Less than a Week to go… 6 days, 7 sleeps! 

I promised I would share gift wrap stuff and here it is.  Our family are Salvos –common knowledge- and Mum used to volunteer for the Salvos wrapping presents at Myer –not so common knowledge.  Anyway, I learned a lot about wrapping from her.  Myer had a quality assurance thing about how wrapping was supposed to appear.  I have that perfectionist thing happening and when wrapping gifts I want them to look awesome! Since my first knee injury (11 years ago), the family gift wrapping has seemed to land on me and I’m known for my wrapping style.  I tend to go just a little bit over-the-top with the curling ribbon.  As far as I’m concerned, when you are wrapping presents, there is no such thing as too much ribbon!!!

See... there is not enough ribbon on this gift! 

This year, I have been accessing a lot of genius wrapping ideas from a number of craft blogs I follow and random things I’ve seen on Pinterest.  My main source of wrapping inspiration has come from Older and Wisor’s series: How to Wrap Your Crap.  I love this name.  She has Seasonal ideas as well as wrapping tips for all year round.  

From
Pimp Yo' Presents Series
on OlderandWisor.com

I also dropped by 30Days of Pinspiration and discovered Britt Morin.  She has pinned a bunch of ideas for wrapping and decorations for the festive season, although heaps of the ideas are adaptable.  You will see I have hyperlinked to boards and sites above, but I have also hyperlinked original sources under each picture.      

I love this idea from brit.co using coloured electrical tape to dress up plain paper

Now, let’s look at some of the cool wrapping I have done so far (not much).   I took a few ideas from above and gave myself permission to do what works for me.  If you are anything like me, it won't look like the picture, so don't stress!  

Gotta wrap the calendars!  Just tie it in a bow!
Don't forget to cut a triangle from each end of the ribbon for pretty ends!

When it comes to wrapping, I am not ashamed to admit that I put thought into which paper goes with which person.  The girls get pinks and the boys get blues.  The multi-coloured papers go for anyone.  In the past I have tried to avoid using the same paper for people in the same family.  For instance, Mum’s gift is wrapped in different paper to Dad’s.  I feel like I’m revealing some weird obsession as I type this.  Many people don’t fuss over gift wrapping like this, I know.  Other people buy only one or two paper types and wrap everything the same so that it co-ordinates with their tree.  Check out yesterday’s post about Tree Décor. 

I love the loopy bow (click for directions), but it doesn’t love me.  I think I have successfully pulled off, exactly ONE of them.  Below you can see the original loopy bow and my loopy bow.  I have resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to do any more of these (at least not this year).  But it looks good and if you can do craft with little fuss, than you will find this easy.  I don’t do anything with little fuss, so you can imagine! 

The Original Loopy Bow
Picture from Older and Wisor

My Loopy Bow
(I used ribbon and for my centre I used a pre-cut  stick-on bow).  

Tomorrow I will show you my wrapping caddy, the sorting system and wrapping kid gifts.