Wrapping Presents

Like me, you’re probably all busily wrapping presents.  Hopefully, unlike me, you don’t feel yourself at the beginning of a cold, or (gasp) the flu.  At any rate, I’m not cooking much this week, but wrapping presents, so today I’m going to provide you with a holiday rerun in this post about wrapping pretty gifts the easy and inexpensive way. Press on everyone!  You’re going to make it!

A wrapped gift employing the use of florals, a glue gun, and a recycled bow.

 

I made quite a score at Michael's the other day when they put their florals on sale for half off and THEN had a coupon to get an additional 15% off of an entire order including sale items.  Can you say, giddy with excitement?

Just a fraction of the items I got ON SALE at Michael's.

Looking at all of the beautiful winter flowers and greenery gave me an idea (helped, no doubt, by being stuck in a long and slow-moving line next to a rack of glue guns).  Why not skip the ribbons and bows on wrapped packages this year in favor of flowers and greenery? And wouldn't using a glue gun be so much faster?

Do you know what? It is!  And not only faster, but the packages are prettier and it looks like you've spent hours on them when essentially you've just spent minutes (plus the time it takes to you  heat up the glue gun and try to remember where you put the wire cutters).

In order to expedite things, it helps to snip all of the leaves and flowers from their stems using wire cutters, or a sharp and powerful pair of kitchen shears (The kind that cuts through a chicken carcass with ease works particularly well.).  Discard the stems, and divide into "leaf" piles and "flower" piles, then sort by color.

Warm up your glue gun while wrapping gifts so you'll be ready.  Then, assembly-line style, hot glue flowers securely in place with dabs of glue in the center and on about half of the outside petals.  Then put a dot of glue underneath the base of the leaves and place them where desired beneath the flower, pressing down until the glue takes hold. Voila!  A beautifully-wrapped, professional-looking package in no time and on a budget.

I used a bit of sparkly gold curling ribbon on this package to bring out the gold on the flower.

After a while you'll develop both a rhythm and a real eye for design.  If you need some inspiration, I recommend Carolyne Roehm's book, Presentations: A Passion for Gift Wrapping.

HOLIDAY PROJECT # 2 - Pretty Packages



A wrapped gift employing the use of florals, a glue gun, and a recycled bow.



I made quite a score at Michael's the other day when they put their florals on sale for half off and THEN had a coupon to get an additional 15% off of an entire order including sale items.  Can you say, giddy with excitement?

Just a  fraction of the items I got ON SALE at Michael's.

Looking at all of the beautiful winter flowers and greenery gave me an idea (helped, no doubt, by being stuck in a long and slow-moving line next to a rack of glue guns).  Why not skip the ribbons and bows on wrapped packages this year in favor of flowers and greenery? And wouldn't using a glue gun be so much faster?

Do you know what? It is!  And not only faster, but the packages are prettier and it looks like you've spent hours on them when essentially you've just spent minutes (plus the time it takes to you  heat up the glue gun and try to remember where you put the wire cutters).

In order to expedite things, it helps to snip all of the leaves and flowers from their stems using wire cutters, or a sharp and powerful pair of kitchen shears (The kind that cuts through a chicken carcass with ease works particularly well.).  Discard the stems, and divide into "leaf" piles and "flower" piles, then sort by color.

Warm up your glue gun while wrapping gifts so you'll be ready.  Then, assembly-line style, hot glue flowers securely in place with dabs of glue in the center and on about half of the outside petals.  Then put a dot of glue underneath the base of the leaves and place them where desired beneath the flower, pressing down until the glue takes hold. Voila!  A beautifully-wrapped, professional-looking package in no time and on a budget.

I used a bit of sparkly gold curling ribbon on this package to bring out the gold on the flower.

After a while you'll develop both a rhythm and a real eye for design.  If you need some inspiration, I recommend Carolyne Roehm's book, Presentations: A Passion for Gift Wrapping.

This is linked to Metamorphosis Monday.

HOLIDAY PROJECT #1 - Homemade Wrapping Paper

Yes, Virginia, I made my own wrapping paper, and you can too.  You are only limited by the size of paper you can run through your printer.  I can only run letter and legal size through (though I long -- if you'll pardon the pun -- for a 12" carriage!), so this piece is letter size.  I altered a picture of my cousin's little boy (which makes him my first cousin once removed, though most people don't know stuff like that -- geez, why do I?!) and checkerboard-ed him with Garfield.  It was surprisingly quick and easy.  It's amazing the things a person can come up with while suffering from insomnia (or maybe coffee was not such a good idea at 11:00 PM).  The down side here is that you'll need a relatively small gift in order to use paper this small.  In my case I printed out two sheets, wrapped the top of the gift with one sheet and the bottom with another and then covered the side seam with a ribbon.  You're really only limited by your imagination (and graphic supply).  Now go have fun and report back telling me what design you made.  I'll be waiting.  (Seriously, I will, so don't let me down.)

This is linked to Seasonal Sundays.