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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Christmas in July - It's a Wrap

{I actually meant for this to be a gift wrapping series, posting a new idea each week in July-- an ode to Christmas in July. But seeing that it's July 31st, I had to, uh,"wrap it up" a bit}


I love beautiful presentation as much as the next person, but I'm the first to admit that gift wrapping is not my forte.  A present stuffed into a gift bag is about as fancy as it gets.  Add some tissue paper and that's REALLY fancy. And if wrapping paper is involved, it's pretty much a miracle if I'm able to wrestle a ribbon onto the box... Ribbon and I do not get along. 

So I've been trying to remedy the situation.  Here are a few easy ideas that are fun and virtually ribbon free:

::Art Wrapping Paper::

First, I enlisted the help of my graphic artists to create some original wrapping paper~

I picked up a bolt of white paper from a local restaurant that uses it to cover their tables.
You can also use a large paper roll that goes with kid's art tables & easels.

I'm all for creativity, but I try not to make more work for myself.
Therefore, I armed the artists with washable crayola markers

wah lah!  Doesn't even need ribbon or a bow to dress it up. 
In this form it's even okay to write on the present itself.

and if you happen to have an aspiring picasso, even better!

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::Initial Tag::

Another easy way to dress up a present is to cut out the recipient's initial out of decorative paper or cardstock~

This is especially good for children's presents and eliminates the need for a card.
'Cause lets face it, even if they can read, the card just ends up getting tossed aside.

I free-handed this one, but if I have a lot of presents to wrap (think christmas), I'll break out the cricut.

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::ECO Bows::

A great way to upcycle plastic bags, magazines and scrap material.  These take a bit more time, but it's an easy project while watching mindless tv-- America's (apparently) Got Talent works for me!

::plastic bag pom-pom::
tutorial via creature comforts


::felt bow::
tutorial via how about orange

I tweaked the tutorial a bit by using felt instead of magazine pages. For the felt bows I only used 7 strips of felt due to the thickness of the material (I omitted the 2 shortest strips). I twisted and stapled each strip. It was easier for me to stitch everything together with a little thread, but a hot glue gun would also work to attach the stapled strips together. Also, this "pattern" is very forgiving, I didn't measure anything out... just guestimated lengths and it still came out pretty nicely.

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::A few more fun ideas from Martha Stewart::

 very cute and also a great way to use up all the "odds & ends" of baking cups leftover from various parties.

not only is yarn easy to work with, but the color combos are endless and it's reasonably priced.  Loving the look of that fuzzy yarn.

i love that it's simple, yet eye catching

cloth, repurposed paper, even leaves.

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