Wrapping

Gift wrapping is one of my little pleasures. I almost get more of a kick at wrapping Christmas parcels than I do unwrapping them. I love the sense of anticipation and seeing them all in a beautiful heap.

So even though I have been wrapping empty boxes this week, I've been having a lot of fun doing it.

These are for the book shop window display, where our theme is recycling. Hence the book pages and re-used packaging paper. With some chenille from the scrap store thrown in to add colour.

One of our customers wanted to know if I had any bright ideas for eco-wrapping. So I offered to lend her my dummy packages for the local Carbon Cutters eco-Christmas event. And give her the link to the tutorial for making gift bows from magazine pages.

I was tempted to go the whole hog and offer to wrap parcels to order too, but the length of my own 'to do' list made me keep my lips shut. The shop Christmas window is due to go up on Sunday. I've been sewing snowflakes like there's no tomorrow.

And I have the rest of a cardboard fireplace to construct.  I think I may have missed my vocation, but vacancies for Santa's elves are few and far between.

Comments

[mooncalf]

I love gift wrapping too. I love making clean neat folds on square parcels and trying to find tidy ways to disguised odd-shaped gifts. That gift bow link will keep me busy this year - I love things like that. It will be a great way to use all that neatly folded too-good-to-throw-away paper I saved from last year. Thank you!

[Mary]

I like the environmentally friendly wrapping papers. Maybe we should all start wrapping and decorating our presents using recycled materials?

Also, Thanks for the all the ideas and the link to the tutorial. I'm not very good at wrapping presents and this year there are a few awkward presents to wrap.

[Dragonfly]

I'm a lover of wrapping too! When I was window-dressing (in a former life!), it would take me and my team 4 weeks to dress my floor of the store for Christmas - 100's of fake presents to wrap and distribute!
In spite of all the fancy wrap out there, I still love brown paper and string!

[Debi]

I love to wrap too! Your shop window sounds wonderful... I'm hoping you plan to post photos!

[Daisie]

I too will be making some of those bows with all the scraps of paper I saved from last Christmas. I often use the children's picturs for wrapping. I do not have enough wall space to display them all and I always feel so guilty stuffing them into the recycling sack every week or so. They make great wrapping and each one is unique! Have you seen these; http://www.folksy.com/items/77789-4-Christmas-furoshiki-fabric-gift-wraps-?shop=yes Yay for eco wrapping!!
Daisie xxx

[kristina]

Wrapping is actually my favorite part of the holiday season. Love the recycled bow (must try this) and the snowflake garland (and this too). But first must do something about procuring presents to wrap! K

[Rebecca]

It's going to look amazing Ali, this sort of re-cycled decoration and wrapping is my very favourite and I gave a little squeal when I saw the paper bow tutorial! I forsee a very happy afternoon for me and my old magazines...

[Thimbleanna]

Oh how fun to do a Christmas window! Your snowflakes are awesome -- what a fun idea. And that bow! You're brilliant!

[Jennifer]

This is all so beautiful! I can't wait to try some of these projects.

[French Knots]

What a super job, planning a Christmas window sounds like fun if time consuming.
I'm going to check out the bow tutorial and as I sorted out some magazines for recycling, but didn't get round to putting them in the paper bin, I have a pile to chop up!

[little pink room]

These are amazing. I was thinking of brown paper and ribbons but this is great idea. I love the magazine page flower. A x

[Jennifer]

What fantastic ideas. I was planning on doing some wrapping with newspaper, but that magazine bow is super. Thanks for the ideas and links.

[sarah]

Sounds like the shop window is going to look brilliant, they're lucky to have you :)

And I can't believe I've never thought to make those bow things before, genius!

[lizandrsn]

OK. Now I have wrapping envy. I might even have shopping envy if I thought there was something in those boxes. But for now, definate wrap envy.

[Simone]

You make a great 'wrapper upper'! Thanks for the link to the magazine bow tutorial. I must have a go! x

[lina]

Love love love your snowflake garland, simple and high impact. You will show us the end result won't you?

I'm thinking of going with newspaper wrapping this year too...apparently you can use hairspray to fix the 'smudging' issue, but wonder if that defeats the object from an eco point of view.

[Ramona]

Yes - I love the bow. Thanks. ever so much.

[kirsten]

Love this, Ali! I love wrapping, too - but sometimes it falls by the wayside. And sometimes I get suckered into buying IKEA wrapping paper (little tomten!) when I have loved the re-purposing wrapping since I was little. Some day I'll find a balance.

And your bow is gorgeous - I might have to try that.

(Is the snowflake glued to the baker's twine?)

[UK lass in US]

I always love it when I have a stack of neatly wrapped presents piled up right before Christmas. I haven't really thought about wrapping yet, though - still got the making / buying part to do. I did have the daft idea that I could make fabric gift bags for everyone to reuse, but then remembered that I didn't start getting ready for Christmas in July, so that's unlikely to happen...

[Gina]

I love wrapping too! Off to check the bow link...

[Lucy Locket-Pocket]

I'm not a very good wrapper-upper but I think those parcels look fabulous and I'm very interested in the bow tutorial so I'm off to investigate!

Lucy xx

[Annabel]

Wrapping is one of my fave Christmas things too. Can't wait to see the shop!

[paula]

I understand you. I like so much to wrap the presents.

[Lisa]

Oh those parcels look lovely!
Thanks for including the link for the bows.
Lisa x

[monica]

wow, that window is going to look amazing... I might have to come and peek!

[Jade]

oh i love these ideas. going to do this same this christmas for us. i especially like the snowflakes. sweet.

[Megan]

Matey, I'd hire you in a second. I love gift wrapping too, I'm just crap at it. These look beautiful (and thanks for bow link, extra cool idea).

[Michael]

Beautiful wrapping job. I made the mistake of reading the side of one of your parcels. Now I'm going to have to Google the sentence fragments in search of the rest of the article :)

There's no question that conventional wrapping paper is an environmental problem. There is so much dye on the paper that no facilities can recycle it. It's hard to find commercially made recyclable paper and even if you got some, there's no guarantee that the person who receives your gift will be mindful enough to separate it for recycling when they tidy up after Christmas morning. Our response to the problem was to start making reusable gift bags.

[Lisa]

Oh wow! Everything looks wonderful. Happy wrapping :)

[Paola]

HO HO HO! You instantly rocketed me into Christmas! Beautiful.

[Julie]

It will look beautiful - you definitely have the best ideas! Thanks for the links to the tutorial - off to have a play now.

[PinkCat]

Looks great and such clever ideas too. I used to love helping to decorate the book department and windows when I worked in the children's shop. I hope we get to see some pictures of the windows! x

[Julia]

Thank you for the link. Those parcels do look really lovely. I'm going to have a go at those bows... with a guilt free conscience.

[Jackie]

Bet you've already seen the recycled paper wreaths at Paper Crave, http://papercrave.com/paper-wreath-tutorials/ particularly as she mentions you!

[featherbed]

those bows are awesome!! I am trying it!!!

[Tiel]

love the snowflakes. even here where currently the fans are on...just turned off the aircon...kids spent hours in the pool...ate icypoles...drank spiders...and ate heaps of mangoes and watermelon....WE STILL CUT OUT SNOWFLAKES!!!

why? perhaps the idea of being cool is welcoming. your wrapping is perfect.