It’s been a busy weekend, with the in-laws visiting, hubby being under the weather, and me getting my very own, very first real Christmas tree. I haven’t done a lot of crafting, but I did spend a bub’s-nap-time wrapping some gifts for Christmas. Halfway through, I thought it might be useful to take some pictures of the process, in case others might be interested.
I learned gift wrapping from my mom, and I am rather proud of my gift wrapping skills. I guess if I ever wanted to, I could probably apply at the gift wrapping kiosk at the mall…
The engineer in me likes to always use the correct amount of paper, not too little (!!), and not too much. Having too much paper to wrap a gift is not as bad as having too little paper, but the end result just doesn’t come out quite right.
Anyways, here it is, my quick tutorial. And who knew, the lighting in my basement is not too bad.
To measure the amount of wrapping paper, I like to start by seeing if the total perimeter of side of the box is less than the length of the wrapping paper roll.
If so, then you only need to measure how much of the roll to use. Lay the box along the side of the roll, and make sure you have enough paper to cover over half the height of the box, on either side (see why, below).
Once you know the amount of paper you need, fold the roll back on the paper you’re going to use, line up the edges of the roll to make sure my folded crease is straight, then cut. I like to use the scissors to cut my wrapping paper, but only using one side, so it’s sort of a safer version of a utility knife blade.
Lay the box in the center of the cut paper, upside down, so the box crease will be at the bottom when you flip the box over. Bring up both sides of the paper and tape.
*You only need enough paper to cover over half the height of the box because once you the paper is wrapped around the gift, the to and bottom bits of paper will cover the entire height of the box, with a bit of overlap.
Push in the sides of the paper towards the box, and crease, to create two trapezoid flaps on top and bottom of the box.
Fold down the top flap, fold up the bottom flap and tape.
Repeat on the other side of the box, and you’re done!
Lather, rinse and repeat for all your holidays gifts! Obviously, this won’t work for all gifts, but the general concept does work in most cases. Anything that can somewhat resemble a box or a cube can be wrapped in this way, and if the shape is too weird, I use a gift bag :-).
Happy wrapping!
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