Last-Minute and Recession-Buster Gift Wrap

The countdown to Christmas is nearly there. Christmas tree chosen? *ticks* Last big shop done? *ticks* Money spent on presents? *ticks* All presents wrapped? *ti... eeeeeeeeeek* It's the day before Christmas and you haven't got any gift wrap in the house. No need to worry, there are other ways of wrapping the gifts nicely. And chances are that you have all the "trimmings" for it at home, anyway.

I am well in time with my gift wrapping. All done, actually. And technically I was not trying to beat the recession by choosing cheap gift wrap. It's more of a style statement than a financial decision. I just find that brown packing paper is the new burlap *grins*. Seriously - brown paper can look so nice.  And it leaves you lots of scope to decorate with string, stickers, stamps, bows and whatever you have at hand.Here is a sneak preview of the 2009 Christmas wrapping style in the Royal household:

I bought a roll of packing paper for € 3.98 and some cotton twine for € 1.98. I wrapped all presents in it and put the twine around them for a rather simple, traditional, almost post-y look. The sparkle and the glamour is added by the gift tags. 

The tags were last year's Christmas cards which I saved. With scalloped scissors I cut out the pictures of the cards where the back had not been written on. They make nice tags, cost nothing and are paper recycling in the best sense! So don't forget to look through your Christmas cards this year before you throw them out... For added sparkle I stuck some self-adhesive scrapbooking crystals on the tags.


How many pressies did I wrap *thinks*. Not sure - maybe 40? It only cost me € 5.00 - and I still have lots of brown paper left to wrap parcels.