Gift Wrapping Guide

I love giving gifts. I have bins in my basement filled with potential gifts for people. So that at the drop of a hat, I can gift a friend (or stranger.) I don’t like showing up to places empty handed. I often like to come bearing gifts. It’s naturally my love language so at the top of my mind often. And whenever I have people coming over bearing gifts, it feels so meaningful to me. That they took the time to think of me and want to show a token of love, is so appreciated by me. I once had a friend come over for a little even I was throwing at my house and she came with a beautiful succulent plant for me. She said, “I feel like giving host gifts is a lost art so I always try and remember to bring something.” And I don’t know if I’ll ever forget that. Because also, hosting things can be a huge under taking and to bring a small gift as a thanks can go a long way. I always try and remember to bring a gift when people host me.

Along with the gift itself, I think there is so much in how it is presented that can make a big difference. Not only is it how the gift looks but also in how I hand it over. It can all be a meaningful experience. Part of the fun for me is preparing my gift for giving. I like to make it pretty. That is special to me and I hope even a little piece of it is special for the receiver as well.

Because of that, I wanted to create a little guide for y’all. It doesn’t have to be difficult or confusing or expensive. It can be very simple and you can use things around your house or backyard.

Here are some inspiration pictures that I love and helped give me some ideas for things I wanted to use myself and from items I already have at home.

First things first, I am an essential oiler. I love to add rollerbottles and little oily gifts with almost every gift. I have custom stickers I made for each of my rollerballs and they make a perfect addition to any gift.

Nature makes the perfect decor for you gifts. Take a walk around your backyard and grab some greenery and leaves and other twigs and odds and ends and create your own line of special additions. This is a free and cute way to decorate your gift packages.

And then take a gander around your house and pick up supplies that could also work well. Some of the things I had laying around were:

• twine

• doilies

• tags

• stickers

• scrabble tiles

• pictures

One of my favorite thing to do is print personalized photos or stock photos on little cards to use. I get really cute free photos from unsplash.com and Parabo Press is a great and cheap way to print them on good quality cardstock paper.

I keep a jar of old scrabble tiles (collected from $1.49 board games from Goodwill over the years) and it’s so fun to put words together on the wrapping paper. I use a hot glue gun for almost all of my designs. And I like to get as neutral wrapping paper as I can for most of my gifts because it makes adding the decor a bit easier and appealing. I love the shipping paper from the Dollar Tree the best.

Target Dollar Spot is also a great place to look for fun additions. I had some wooden glitter leaves and some fake flower buds ready to add to my gifts.

For the mason jar gift, I simply sketched out a jar and then hot glued the flowers and twine down. I love how it turned out!

I used some watercolor paper and painted + sketched some crystals so using your own art is a great way to adorn a gift. Grab that cute cookie cutter and add it to the top with some ribbon. I added a little clip to the outside to hold a photo for one gift and it was an extra special flare to that box. Even a cute little bundle of twigs makes a big difference in your presentation.

The other thing to keep in mind is placement. While often times, keeping everything centered and straight is a good way to go about it, other times, offsetting the design or putting certain items at an angle can be just the key for perfecting your presentation. Play around with it and have fun!

And thats really the key with it- have fun. Think of the person you are giving the gift to you and let their smile lead your creativity. I laid a blanket out on my living room floor and had all my items sitting around me AND all 6 of my children around. I was able to play around and create some beautifully adorned gifts while they felt inspired to do the same with their own little items and gift giving capabilities. We made a mess, wrapped some gifts and had lots of fun while doing it.

I hope this gives you a little inspiration into your own gift-giving fun!