wrapping ideas

You've probably started wrapping gifts by now, but I thought that if you were stuck for ideas you might like a little round-up of some of my favourite wrapping and embellishment ideas.

{1 yarn and string} With a little yarn you can create cute decorations for any package. I've also used string and I liked the look of that as well. What skills do you need to do this? None and that's my very favourite kind of DIY.

{2 make your own gift bags} I mentioned this before, but I still love it. It's a "forever kept in my brain" kind of DIY.

{3 snow globe wrapping paper} I don't think I'd ever do this as intended, but I like the round snowflakes all over each package. Maybe I'd just do that instead of going through the hassle of snow globing all of my gifts (paging Martha Stewart's team of elves!).

{4 cut out designs} I did this. It was hard to get the placement correct. But (despite some tearing) I like how it looks.

{5 sparkle tags and velvet ribbons} Anything that sparkles is a win in my book. In fact, just take a glue stick and some glitter and glitter the hell out of pretty much everything. I used a glue stick and some pretend glitter (read: hole punched coloured paper -- the hole part) and stuck it on a package in a random pattern to look kissed by glitter. Just glitter it! (That's my new Christmas slogan.) I also adore the scratchy sparkles with the soft velvet. That's a good look.

{6 burger paper} This is not a DIY unless you're really artistic or have amazing pictures of burger ingredients you can blow up and print out onto wrapping paper (hmm). This is about the only wrapping paper I've actually wanted to buy in many years. But they assume I wrap gifts in boxes like a pro. Gifts in boxes that are appropriately sized for burger stacking. (Where are those damn Martha Stewart elves?)

{7 sewn kraft paper bundles} Messy. I like messy and carefree these days. Or do I? I'm all over the place.

{8 woven paper} If you have a lot of time on your hands or you've got one or two extra special presents you want to decorate, this would look so cute. And with newspaper. You have to use newspaper or it will look wrong.

please note the super awesome pink hydrangea gift tag I printed and cut out myself

Also I really have to suggest you search for "free printable gift tags" (and go through the images) if you use gift tags for your gifts. I've been saving the ones I really love every year (whether I use them or not) and it makes my life so much easier to scroll through the files on my computer and choose what fits in and works for me each year than to try and find something from the store. There are so many gorgeously designed tags for free that there's no reason at all that you should buy them from a store (and anyway, good luck finding creative, design-y and unique tags in any store on the cheap).

I love printing them myself because I can print only what I need. I don't have a whole lot of people to gift to so usually I can remember who gets what, and I don't need to print out a full sheet of tags. I get what I need and I don't have a bunch of them sitting around, being all useless and taking up space (it's more environmentally friendly this way, too, I think). And if you want them sticky, just buy some sticker paper. (That's on my to-do list. Sticker paper would be really handy to have around for a lot of things.) The same principle is true for holiday cards, too.

And just for you, here are the gift tags I especially love this year:

classic

all-season

mod

plaid

feathers

everything! (I found the above tag here last year, but there's also a whole bunch of other Christmas stuff for downloading, including cards and wrapping paper.)