How-To: Hip Giftwrap

My husband just turned 30, and of course I waited until the last minute to wrap his presents. So while I was frantically trying to slap them together before he got home from pub night, I had to stop myself… this is 30! It has to be good.

I have to say, I was pretty happy with how easily the gift wrap creative juices started flowing once I committed to spending just that little bit of extra time. Check it.

The key to a hip collection of boxes is that no two are the same.

4 Simple Tricks for Impressive Gift Wrap

1. Mix it up. Choose two coordinating papers, and wrap boxes in each of them.

2. Break it up. Add interest by putting a band of the opposite paper across the middle of some packages.

3. Go simple. Again, the key is variety. And simple is a good variety! Especially if you can do it with just one little twist, like quadrupling ribbon (twine… my favorite) before tying a basic bow.

4. Go funky. Get creative with trying to use the opposite paper in lieu of a bow. Here, we have a bloomin’ flower of brown paper. You can even curl most paper (gently) with scissors, just like you would ribbon.

Of course, all that pride in my work, and the real show stopper was the bit of orange I threw in just for fun. Ah, well. Can’t beat peanut butter cups. And all-in-all, it was a pretty fab 30th birthday… you can see the whole thing here, in fact: Dennis Turns 90!