Ribbon, yarn, string. Tissue, kraft paper. Cardstock. Old paper patterns.
Armed with a paper cutter, scissors, whimsy and a hot glue gun, I wrapped every single present this year without buying any supplies - and they all had a thematic coherency.
The wrapping was beige, brown, ecru, taupe, cream, buff, tan, and khaki - a neutral palette of saved sheets underlaying the recycled red, green, gold, silver and white ribbons. For the tags, I typed everyone's name enough times into columns in 36 point type, picked a random handful of nice display fonts, and printed out sheets of buff cardstock. A pass through the paper cutter and the hole punch, with a little piece of red crochet thread - bang zoom, tags.
One set of (mailed) packages had non-standard orange and brown ribbons, only because I know that family of recipients not to care that Christmas is Red and Green. The family's set of presents was, however, internally consistent and complementary.
And Santa? Santa wrapped in red/green/white/silver/gold wrapping paper, paper that we already had, or that had been carefully saved last year; the packages that will mysteriously appear overnight will be in magical colorful paper, not the buff/brown/ecru that the human parents used.
Ribbons can be reused over and over. And why spend money on wrapping paper? It's just going to be torn off. It's about the giving, not the wrapping.
24 December 2009
Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String
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14 comments:
I'm impressed. I don't usually get this far in my planning. I wrapped in school fund raising wrapping paper. I do keep all the gift bags and tissue paper we get and reuse it. Ribbons, too, when they are salvagable. Santa usually doesn't wrap anything. I made special tags from him years ago and reuse them each year. Merry Christmas!!
I wish I had done this. My husband bought some really ugly wrapping paper.
Your packages look gorgeous.
I'm impressed! We do all our wrapping between midnight and 2 am on Christmas Eve...
Stop by my blog later...I'm having a holiday giveaway!
buenos burritos.blogspot.com
And Merry, Merry Christmas to you and yours!
We have been reusing the same $0.25 Target bags for at least 3 years now. At the end of our gift exchange, each household takes its share back home to reuse the following year.
And you've made it all so lovely.
Merry Christmas!
I like your style.
We've been reusing the same bags for probably 5 years now. This year I purchased 1 roll of wrapping paper and some tape. That was it as far as wrapping was concerned.
PS: Here Santa leaves gifts unwrapped and assembled! I'm always interested in how it happens in other homes.
Those look so lovely! I need to make some prettier tags this year.
We re-use the same Christmas-fabric bags every year, because I also can't stand to see the waste. Plus, the fabric bags make wrapping super fast.
Beautious! Enjoy... xxooh
MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and your family! Have a wonderful new year too!
Love the idea of planning all year for the Christmas wrapping. I'm inspired. Thanks.
Anna
...Brown paper packages tied up with strings.... These are a few of my favorite things!
That is perfect. I love how you did this.
I've decided that I'm going to look for some festive fabric on sale this year to use for future holiday wrapping. I'm tired of the waste, too. But perhaps I'll hang on to some of the brown paper we sometimes get, too.
These are just gorgeous. But where did the brown/tan/ecru paper come from? (it's probably painfully obvious, but I'm a little slow today)
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