Wrap It

I love giving gifts. For me, it’s the journey towards the gift that I get the most reward out of.

As a person who has received a few gifts that don’t fit at all, I take pride in offering something to my giftees that has thought and love behind it.

Let’s be honest. The thing about gifts is that sometimes they can be an imposition on people’s taste, their decor or their storage availability.

You take something that you think will be cool, and give it to this person to do with what they will. If the gift fits them, it will be a successful addition to their house and life. If it does not, it’s a waste of money that will cause them a twinge whenever you come over and they have to remember to bring it out of storage.

I’ve received some gifts that I unwrap and think “WTF? This isn’t me at all.” I won’t go into specifics, because whatever the gift, there was a genuine desire to please behind the giving, however misguided the choice.

The positive I choose to take from the experience is the endeavour to never give a gift like that myself.

Increasingly I’m hand making my gifts, and I get a warm fuzzy feeling with the time and effort I put into crafting something beautiful for a friend.

Here’s the trifecta to a perfect gift: think about the person, the occasion, and their personality.

It’s that simple.

I’ll start with my favourite way to wrap a gift. It’s so simple and easy, but it makes such a difference to the gift.

There are so many options out there for wrapping paper, but they’re all cookie cutter designs. I also don’t like spending much on wrapping paper because paper is a natural resource and the time that it’s on the gift doesn’t outweigh what was used to create it.

Enviro- rant over.

A super quick and easy option is to make your own. Once you’ve done it once or twice it shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to recreate and you can match the style to your gift, the person, or the occasion.


Decide what motif you want to go with. For this sample I wanted to go with a bright, fruity theme that matches a personal joke with the giftee. Now Google it! Search for the motif and select two or three that fit.

Tip: Go with the same type of image. All clip art, or all photos. It will look more cohesive on the paper.

Tip: Choose an image that is more than 300px in size. When you mouse over the image, it will show the size on the bottom. This will make sure you get a nice crisp image once you print.

Tip: Choose an image on a white background. It’s easy to move and place the images around each other this way.

Copy and paste into a Word document. Select each image and place it in front of the text using: ‘Picture Tools, Text Wrapping, In Front of Text’. This will make it easier to move the images around on the page.

Copy, resize and rotate your images and arrange in a corner of the page until you have a look that you like. Then copy this arrangement (hold down shift and select the images), and paste down the page and into the gaps. You can paste off screen to cover the edges.

Print! You can print A4 or A3 as your computer allows. I printed A4 for this sample taped the pages together to cover my book.

Wrap and decorate. I always love trying different things when wrapping, because the choices you make aren’t permanent. I normally wouldn’t match so many colours, but who cares? It looks great in the photo and the eclectic mix of colours hints at something fun under the cover!

(My friend and I are really into Veronica Mars, and she also loves books, so this was a no brainer gift for me.)

Comments

[Eryn]

Thanks Jaz! :)

[Jaz @ Red Dolls]

I can't believe you made that paper yourself, I thought it was fabulous! I also loved the way you folded the brown paper bag to hold the card, well cool.