Creative Gift-Wrapping Ideas

 Sometimes the wrapping just says everything about a gift.  Consider these two scenarios: a brightly papered box with crisp edges and clean lines, perhaps a bow or two, a label, a card.  The whole shebang.  It says that the person doing the wrapping really cared about what they were doing.  At the very least, they cared about making a good impression.  Now consider this: your friend shows up at your birthday party without a gift.  Then, randomly, they go, “I almost forgot” and they go out to their car and come back with a decorate pillow that is completely unwrapped.  The first impression is that the gift wasn’t even bought for the occasion or the recipient, and was a complete afterthought.  Getting gifts isn’t what counts.  It’s the reassurance that the giver wanted to give it. 

You don’t give friends handfuls of chocolate. No.  You carefully lay them side by side in candy boxes and then dress them with a bow, or at least a smiley face drawn on with a sharpie. 

Fabric flowers have become one of my favorite embellishments.  Continuing with the candy boxes, they are usually glossy and classy looking enough on their own.  Cut a ribbon out of felt and make a felt flower to secure and decorate them with.  Obviously, you can do this with other boxes, and even brown paper bags.  I love using a simple covering and then decorating it with other creative components.

I guess you could say that flowers of any kind (paper, real, or fabric) aren’t really that creative.  There are still other options!  Wrap your candy boxes in word-search paper (preferably candy themed).  Fabric gift wrap is making quite a debut in the gift-wrapping industry.  This is for several different reasons.  For one, it’s just plain cool.  For another, it is very durable.  You can find just as many fun pictures and designs on fabric as you can on wrapping paper.  There should be a remnants section at any fabric store where you can buy small, leftover pieces without having to spend large amounts of money on large amounts of cloth.  Finally, fabric gift wrap is reusable, and people like that!  Consider finding a piece of fabric that you and your best friend can use back and forth for the rest of your lives. 

Another one of my favorite types of gift wrap are doing a weave with strips of paper or string.  Wrap the gift in construction and then find a tutorial online that will show you how to do a weave with the materials overtop the packaging.  If you don’t want to get as crazy as the weave, you can do a pseudo-weave, or create your own designs, using Washitape.  What did we ever do before Washi tape??