New Year's gift wrap ideas

New Year's gift wrapping (and lots of directions and materials lists) from ginatepper.com:

I really like this mask idea with glittery paper from corinnawraps.

DIY Gift Wrapping from dollar store and free printables

I have started my Christmas wrapping. My first package needs to go to my daughter, son-in-law and their family. So first, I did some scribbling, along the lines of what I talked about in this earlier post,

Materials:
White Wrapping Paper
Dollar Store Glitter Glue
Dollar Store Ribbons
Print it yourself gift tags

I was loosely trying to do a Christmas tree, succeeded better on one than the other, but I still liked them both. I wrapped, scribbled with the glitter glue, glued on a simple knotted ribbon piece for each and used gift tags I had printed. Done.

Next, I tried using printable wrapping paper and gift tags along the lines of these posts:
 Free Printable Wrapping Paper  
What with white paper

Materials:
8.5 x 11 printer paper
Glossy photo paper for the tags
Ribbons and glitter tape from the Dollar Store.
White wrapping paper.
Leftover glitter paper bats from Halloween
hole punch

The gift wrap I downloaded was from a french site,  hello hello.  When I printed, I made sure that the print settings put down maximum ink. One of the reasons I stuck with black and white is my inkjet wasn't doing so great with the colored versions.

I liked the reindeer antlers and the trees.

The paper I printed was 8.5 x 11, so works only on very small gifts. On a larger gift, I tried folding a band to go around the front, but ended up adding a couple different glitter ribbons and some glitter tape to hold down the edges of the band. Finally, I had some glittery cardboard bats that didn't survive Halloween that well so I cut them up to add some accents to the gift tags.

The tags I ended up using were from yourmarketingbff.com.. As mentioned before, I printed these on photo paper. They have a number of free designs, I started from this page because I found the tags from these pictures using the wrapping paper I had downloaded. 

Reindeers and Trees!

But ended up with this version which you can find for free in their shop:

And I'm Done.

Etsy Monday Printable Christmas Downloads

While not free, I really could not resist these Christmas wrapping and tag downloads from Wendyjune. As she says in her very Cute Etsy Shop :

"It all started in grade 3 when I won a prize for drawing an icecream.
Miss Marsden you have a lot to answer for.

I love to draw! You will find my original drawings featured on a range of beautifully produced products. Quirky cards, stationary, tea towels as well as a range of digital prints."

These Christmas Cat Gift Tags  are super cute.

Add these great gift bags and you are all set for small gifts!

Christmas Bird Decorations! Would look great on gifts.

Christmas Swan Gift Bags.

Maiko Nagao Free Printables

This graphic designer really has some excellent free printables suitable for the holidays on her blog.  Check this out:

Perfect graphic gift tags.

This works for more than the holidays, but I think it would be very holiday chic with some red ribbons.

Okay so not exactly gift wrapping, but seriously how cute is this anti-monster spray label?

Spray away the monsters!

More Cute and Free Holiday Themed Gift Wrap

Handmade Charlotte's DIY Nutcracker Gift Wrap.

Next, the link below takes you to some Hannukah designs as well as Christmas, that print out as big as 11 x 17.

MomsandCrafters

Preppy reindeers. So good.

Elli's preppy reindeer free printable.

Finally, this cute gift tag is a cross between a DIY (draw it yourself) and a free printable (there are instructions for both). PLUS there are a couple of other super cute designs you can download.

Craftberry

More free printable gift wrapping paper for the holidays

Whether you use it as an accent, or to wrap a small gift, free printable gift wrap downloads are out there in abundance.  Here are some more of my favorites:

Snowmen and package/trees from Bloesem.

The two patterns above were actually designed by Jessica Nielsen for Bloesem.  She has her own free downloads, this one caught my eye because it uses (one of)  Pantone's Color of the Year for 2016 Rose Quartz.

Jessica has this and other free, modern designs.

 This one from See Kate Sew is so perfect for certain gifts.

Any crafty fabric type gift would be so cute with this.

Free printable wrapping paper.

The internet, and better printers, has made the acquisition of wrapping paper at least for small gifts a very easy thing to do.  So many talented graphic designers out there share their work:

Tags AND wrapping paper to print.

 Here are some cute options from WhiteDahlia. Follow the link for more!:

One of the WhiteDahlia options

Giochi di Carta is a favorite destination of mine. Check this wrapping paper out!

Free printable wrapping paper.

birthday present

You know all that cut out stuff letting photos show through I was posting about?  It's harder than it looks.

draw on your hidden talents.

What could be more personal than a hand-drawn image on gift wrapping?  I hear a lot of people say they can't draw, meaning I guess that their sketches aren't polished or professional looking.  I think that is emphatically not the point.  As a person with moderate skills or at least comfort with sketching/doodling/etc. I think one should just put pen (or pencil/marker/crayon) to paper until you come up with an image or design you like. It does not have to be perfectly executed or at a Picasso/DaVinci level for you to create something satisfying.  For example, my husband and I collaborated on a painting that has a prominent place in our living room.  He created a beautiful goldenrod venetian plaster background and I drew my version of a smiley face on it with some kind of craft store paint. It makes us both smile every time we look at it. Success!

Any kind of sketching basically involves looking at something, whether real life or not, and drawing what you see or want to see.  The possibilities for application to gift wrap seem endless! Here is some giftwrap sketch inspiration for you:

A wedding present?

From CandyPopStyle

A gift for your love?

Think how cute this would be sketched on kraft or white paper

Warpandweft used some of her doodles as an inspiration for printed gift wrap paper.  You could too. Remember Spoonflower? It is pretty easy to come up with a repeating design through them that can go on fabric or gift wrap. Spend some time playing there.

Warp and weft

Are you a doodler?  Look how pretty your plain old scribbles can turn out!

Fair Ivy DIY Instructions

 or try this take on doodling, even simpler!!

InspiredbyCharm

Bonus points for the washi tape and photo gift tags!

Inspired by Charm

Peek a boo

This involves two layers of wrapping paper.  In the top layer, you make little cut outs letting colored paper or tissue or other paper show through.  I love this idea!

Wrap once with your "underneath paper" and then again with paper you have cut half the letters/symbols out using an exacto knife.

And of course this one. Originally from The House that Lars Built, shown on many, many blogs etc.  because it is just the best idea ever. I tried it with okay results.

More Wrapping ideas.

And finally, since Christmas is creeping up on us, let's close with a tree, Martha style.

Tree silhouette.

ideas for a husband's birthday wrapping

My husband's birthday week is upon us. In my family, we have birthday weeks, thanks to my brilliant daughter.  Why have one day when you can stretch out the be nice to the birthday person for a week?  It also has the excellent side benefit of making it possible to be a day or two late with a present if needed. Win-win scenario.

So now with this blog, I felt like I had to up my game a little. In the past, he would have been very happy with a paper bag.  So starting with kraft paper, (that's sort of a paper bag, right?) I decided to do a stencil and trim with jute.  My husband does decorative finishes on walls and furniture for a living, so I felt it was appropriate to at least go in that direction, hence the stencil.

A trip to Jo-ann's brought home a stencil and paint markers. (From the clearance bin, but I linked to similar stuff.) Okay, I could do this.  I didn't sweat filling in the stencil perfectly, this was supposed to look rustic, right?

And the reveal!

Hmm. Missing something. My eye kept going to the blotchy spots.  Well, since I had just finished a post on greenery out I went to the backyard to trim some overgrown bushes .

 Much better! More views!

White wrap.

Can you believe the gift wrap below was actually a do it yourself with an embossing plate?  I am intimidated.

(Sourced from Gave That.)

Then she put vellum butterflies on it.

(Images by Mam for Gave That.)

When I started this post, I was thinking about super simple white wrapping paper with some ribbon or lace, like below. But then I found Gave That's wrap. I am still reeling.  Embossing. Vellum butterflies made with stamps and blue ink.  I feel so inadequate.

Confetti Style

Wrap Music.

Simple wrapping ideas re-using paper types are popular.  I have seen a lot of posts talking about upcycling sheet music. My mom was a musician, so I grew up with sheet music in the home. If I still had it, I don't think I could bring myself to cut it up, but even so, I love the idea.

For those of us who are squeamish about chopping up Mom's sheet music inventory, we can go to a site called Musopen  for royalty free music sheets. It's a fascinating place to browse by composer, instrument or time period.  Download them in PDF form and print them for free, and then use in wrapping ideas like this:

Huffington Post

blah,blah, magazine DIY gift wrap ideas.

.

red agape more DIY gift wrapping ideas

I do recommend following the links above, there are a lot of very cute wrapping ideas musical and nonmusical.

##

Two for tea (two uses for tea towels)

Tea Towel Wrapping is one of the ultimate eco-friendly wrapping ideas. Green thumbs up for re-use of the wrapping and cotton instead of trees. For those of us who think about that, here are some ideas about how to do it:

The simple approach.

Half Hitch Goods

And what may be the definitive post on tea towel wrapping.

Brit.co

I highly recommend following the above link to the post by Brit and Co on about ten different ways to wrap using a tea towel. I mean, they even get you to MAKE the tea towel. Whew. I bow before them.