You have picked out the perfect gift and can’t wait to hand it over…but first, time to wrap! Wrapping gifts can be lots of fun and doesn’t need to be hard or expensive. Here are some ideas to set your gift apart from the rest!

Go traditional. There is always the old standby of colorful store-bought paper and a ribbon. This is probably the easiest method but can be costly if you want big ribbons. Children love wrapping paper with their favorite characters and sports.

Make your own bows! It’s not as hard as it sounds! There are many helpful tutorials online at instructables.com, youtube.com and pintrest.

Start it simple. Wrap your gift in a neutral paper, perhaps a white or brown. Decorate it with colored pencils or stamps and paint. If you’re artistic, draw a picture of the recipient right on the paper! Create designs with decorative tape, ribbon, or stick-on letters and designs.

Get creative with your decorations. Sometimes found objects from nature can be beautiful, such as leaves, flowers, or special stones tied on with string. You may have objects laying around your house as well, such as hair ribbons, lace, wallpaper, feathers, handmade silhouettes, or photos, which make great gift tags. Craft stores often have small cut-outs made from paper, wood, or cardboard.

Take a tip from the Japanese. They often use squares of fabric, called furoshiki, to wrap lunches and gifts. You can easily make your own with any fabric you choose or buy them online. This is a great way to reuse your wrapping over and over, especially for family gifts. It’s a much sturdier and prettier way than scavenging your paper after every gift is opened!

You don’t have to use ribbon! Ribbon can be beautiful, but consider other options, such as buttons glued next to a seam, raffia, embroidery floss, twine, wire, strips of paper or fabric, jewelry, or even ropes of candy.

Pretty papers. Consider wrapping in newspaper, maps, or old sheet music. Children often come home with all kinds of art projects that can be used to wrap gifts for parents or grandparents. An old book cover can even be hollowed out and tied with twine for a whimsical look. Print your own paper or tags on your computer, or initials, pictures, or words to form a collage.

Get festive! Holidays usually come with all kinds of little items to add some character to a gift. Some ideas include Christmas ornaments, bells, mistletoe, holly, cookie cutters, candy hearts, shamrocks, New Year’s glasses, confetti poppers, candles, or festive candies.

Reusable Gift tags. An adorable and reusable idea is to buy or make tiny chalkboards. A little wooden cut-out and some blackboard paint can be used over and over, and can be shaped like birthday cakes, Christmas trees, teddy bears, almost anything. If you have a jigsaw you can even create your own shapes!

Employ a little craftiness. You can create your own bows and accessories out of fabric or crochet. Handmade paper can make beautiful tags, and they can also be sewn or cut out of scraps of fabric.

Creative use of boxes Old boxes, such as shoe boxes, can be wrapped in paper both inside and out. Baskets can be filled and decorated, and vintage crates always look great. Bins can even make cute wrapping – consider using popcorn bins to create a movie gift basket. Another option is small wooden boxes such as cigar boxes, pencil boxes or keepsake boxes.

Bio –

This guest post contribution is courtesy of The Ribbon Retreat, an Idaho based company specializing in assorted ribbon and crafting supplies such as elastic ribbon, sequin ribbon, offray ribbon and much more.

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