Before I am going out tonight to send off a former colleague of mine who is leaving Ireland and heading off to different shores, there is a quick post to show you something. I don't want to celebrate her leaving without giving her a little pressie to remind her of Dublin. A photograph was quickly picked from my archives and mounted. Then it came to wrapping it nicely. Would you like to be sent off with this:
Instead of using some red ribbon from my newly organised ribbon rail I felt like making something. Also, I haven't really got much "grown-up" wrapping paper (most of the gift-wrapping I do these days goes towards kids' birthday presents, and I have a roll of colourful kids' paper for that).
Is it really bad form and cheap to re-use an old photocopy as wrapping paper? Well, I'll claim that I did it with recycling in mind. I turned a bit of blah scrap paper into a stylish gift wrap by simply printing an origami paper design onto the white back of the photocopied page.
Then I made a gift bow from strips of paper. I won't go through all the stages, because there is already a great tutorial out there. How about Orange posted this last year - and I bookmarked it for eventual use. Check the tutorial here. And while you are there, make sure you look through her other posts. She comes up with the greatest paper design finds EVER and is one of my regular craft reads!
Basically, the gift bow is made from nine strips of paper which you arrange individually in an "8" shape. You then stick them on top of each other and finish up with a paper circle in the middle. I slightly adapted my version. I used a bit of a red calendar page which was left-over after my filofax inserts. The light blue back of the page is also visible in the gift bow - I like the contrast of the colours. Here's the finished bow:
Whoops, a bit lopsided.
This is what I will be handing over tonight:
Well, even if it was a free gift and free gift-wrap - I took the time to make it. I hope that balances the cheapskate-ness out...
Ok, off to the pub now.
Be good!
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.
Is it really bad form and cheap to re-use an old photocopy as wrapping paper? Well, I'll claim that I did it with recycling in mind. I turned a bit of blah scrap paper into a stylish gift wrap by simply printing an origami paper design onto the white back of the photocopied page.
