I use only double sided tape, so the tape won’t show. I prefer pressed foil or laser papers or mylar wrap;these do not show the wear from wrapping and shipping as badly as regular papers. I also use tissue paper, white, colored or patterned or mylar tissue. I tend to avoid Santa or nativity motifs, but prefer holly, trees, stars, snowflages, poinsettas, and abstract patterns. I am very careful about color and texture combinations and am careful to use colors I know the recipient likes and avoid those the recipient detests.
I wrap books first in tissue and then in wrapping paper. I am careful to not tape to the gift or the box directly, unless the box is a plain paper box that I bought separately.
I use a combination of wide ribbons and narrow ribbon and make my own bows. I often use curled ribbon. If I want crisscrossed ribbons, I use two peices rather than one and letting the criss cross crush the ribbon. I hide the join in the ribbon under the bow.
I do not use premade tags, but rather make my own or write on the packages with gold or silver pens.
In an effort to Make The World A Better Place, I like to use maps, newspaper, posters and craft paper as my wrapping paper. I recently used the GUESS JEANS ad campaign featuring Paris Hilton in Septembers Vanity Fair (about 20 pages of her…ack) to wrap a bunch of barbie doll toys for my neice. I thought it was appropo and Paris was finally put to some good use.
In an effort to Destroy The World As We Know It, my husband buys Xmas paper and wraps the stuff that I haven’t gotten too yet.
We cancel each other out, as usual.
As for tape, if I ever have any in stock because of two kids with a clear tape addiction problem, I consider myself lucky.
When I have needed tape and have not had it, I use stickers or home address labels.
For me, it’s not so much about the wrapping itself as the ritual of the wrapping. First, I gotta put on my antlers. Then I have to make a nice mug of hot chocolate or warm cider, or maybe some eggnog with a snort of rum. Then I need the tree lights on. I simply cannot wrap presents without the tree lights on. It just doesn’t work. Then I put on some Christmas music, or turn the TV to a Christmas special. Then I pull out my wrapping tin (contains pens, scissors, tags, rolls of ribbon, tape, etc.) and all the papers. When all that is arranged, I can begin.
I usually have at least two types of paper, one of which isn’t especially girly. I don’t avoid any particular themes, I just pick out something I like. It might be something elegant, or it might be something funny. Depends on my mood when I’m out shopping. I’m not real fussed about the specifics of the tissue paper, either. White, red, green, printed, it doesn’t much matter to me, as long as it’s in there and arranged nicely. Since I have to travel, I usually do curling ribbons or flat ribbons, rather than actual bows. I do criss-crossed ribbons the way you describe. As for tags, I can go with premade or do my own, depending on what’s handy.
I use single-sided tape, since it doesn’t show that much and I’m too clumsy to do doublesided easily. Besides, I figure if anyone is looking at the wrapping job that critically, they’re probably big enough jerks to not deserve presents.
For most of the first decade of my marriage, I went largely tapeless. I would buy tape, bring it home and get at most one days use. Then for reasons locked deep in hubby’s mind, the tape would disappear. He never knew where it was. He maintained his innocence in the matter. One day, I willfully an wantonly went through my boxes of stuff and found a large box of scotch tape. He still maintains he has no idea how all that tape got in that box, but who cares? I had TAPE! It lasted a couple years and then I got hooked on the doublesided tape.
Walgreens is open 24 hours and they always have the good stuff, so I won’t go tapeless any more. He know that midnight tape runs are in the realm of possibility so although tape sometimes goes missing, it is not the persistant and instant dissappearance that used to happen. I give my daughter a piece or two and some ribbon as a sacrifice and things go ok.
I was always bothered by the look of it on the packages I wrap, it never bothered me on the gifts I received. I also use random bits of doublesided to make the job more difficult for those who c a r e f u l l y u n w r a p g i f t s w i t h o u t t e a r i n g t h e p a p e r.
I love getting presents in recyled maps and comics.
Ha! I thought my kids were the only ones with that monkey on their backs. I just had to put my husband’s birthday gift in a gift bag with pink bunnies on it, because I could find any tape.
I knew a woman with two kids who would keep all of the color comic sections of the Sunday papers for a few weeks, and she would wrap all of their gifts in those. She figured they were only going to stay wrapped for about a millisecond Christmas morning, and actually it really looked very cool to see all those gifts in the colorful cartoon paper.
Wrapping paper is just the last stage for us. My wife’s family has a tradition of disguising presents, so only ones in non-descript boxes get wrapped as is. Others get put into gift boxes or in the boxes we’ve saved for Christmas throughout the year or even from last year. A gift in a Victoria’s secret box does not mean anything lacy inside. We’re not fancy about tape. When opening, we only try to preserve large chunks of paper for reuse next year. However, some presents are given to Ki the wonder dog to open. When we first got him we wrapped some presents for him. Being half border collie, he immediately figured out how to carefully unwrap presents, by putting a paw on the box and undoing the paper with his teeth. We take it before he starts to open the box. He loves unwrapping, and will clearly make himself available to help during all present opening occasions.
I wrap in our room with the door locked and either Beethoven or Mike Oldfield on the CD player.
Presents to everyone but my wife are wrapped by her. Presents to her are wrapped by my daughter. Prior to my daughter coming of wrapping age, I did wrap some presents myself. I’m pretty handy. I have, on a lark, created archways out of regular doorways. I have built (completely by hand, from raw lumber, with no written plan) a floor to ceiling, 12’ long entertainment center for our living room. Gift wrapping, however, eludes me. It always came out looking like I’d put the gift, 17 rolls of wrapping paper, and a case of tape through the garbage disposal.
I can, however, do the self stick bows all by myself. So long as someone else first makes sure it doesn’t clash with the paper. :sigh:
I like using comics, magazines. Old calender pictures work well for small gifts. My favorite wrapping was when one of my friends wrapped graduation presents in pages from SAT prep books and his Fiske guide. (A huge, infuriating, book of college descriptions)
I try to avoid the overtly Christian wrapping paper (nativities, religious looking stars, etc.) 'cause I’m not. One year I wrapped everyone’s gifts in Chanukah paper, just to be difficult, but I don’t think they noticed. I generally stick with nature designs, snowflakes, leaves etc. and convince myself that it’s Solstice paper. Then I tell myself to get the stick out of my butt, stop stalling and get to wrapping already.
I love the wrapping itself, it’s all the preliminaries I hate: finding a space large enough to do it, clearing everything away, finding scissors that aren’t totally dull and discovering WhyKid and/or WhyDad has dulled another pair of sewing scissors on paper! Tape? Good luck. The tape trolls eat it, I believe.
I don’t use double-sided tape, but I do fold over the leading edge of the taop sheet of paper to make a nice straight line, and I line the join of the paper with the edge of the box I’m wrapping. The ends get box folded in, then once again the tab end is folded in on itself before being brough up and taped in place. 99% of the time, the end join is perfectly halfway up the end of the box. The other 1% is DVD boxes, which are just too dang small.
Last year, I wrapped many things in non-consumable stuff, like scarves, handkerchiefs, bamboo boxes and the like. I couldn’t convince people that the wrapping was part of the gift. I ended up getting most of it back, with some bizarrely hurt feelings on the recipients part, so we’re back to filling landfills with brightly colored paper this year.
One of the things I like to do is use transparent colored plastice or cellophane over foils. You can get some nice and different colors from that. the green cellophane that is often used over fruit baskets over a silver foil gives a mint green that is really nice.
Our family has evolved a wonderful system where we don’t buy each other anything. Saves a buttload of cash!
Actually, if I’m wrapping Xmas presents, I don’t give a shit about the recipient’s colour preferences. All presents are red.
I wrap them first in red tissue paper to hide what the present is, then I wrap that in red cellophane. Then if it’s something like a book (reasonably square and flat, and not easily damaged by a small amount of heat), I hold the wrapped present over the toaster, or aim a hair dryer at it. This shrinks the cellophane making it look tight and smooth. You need to be careful not to do it too much though or it will begin to melt. I don’t use any ribbons or any further enhancement at all apart from a tiny gift tag.
Dirt cheap, pretty easy, and I usually get compliments on it, if not least because I look like the sort of knuckle-dragging simian that shouldn’t be able to wrap anything at all.
You all put me to shame. I should just give up on gift giving until I can wrap with some enthusiasm.
For Christmas I stock up on extremely cheap paper way after the holidays, many times I get it at the Goodwill store. I don’t care what it looks like. For other gifts I try to find some universal paper when I buy the leftover Christmas paper, like a plaid or stripe. If I have nothing else I use the color comics from the Sunday paper, or a brown paper bag with some sort of natural fiber string for ribbon. I use the free gift tags from the American Lung Association or the local hospital. Sometimes I will cut a tag out of paper. If it’s just for family I write the name on the package with a Sharpie.
I use office supply clear tape from a very heavy dispenser that the kids are too lazy to lose. I don’t try to be perfectly neat, if I cut a piece of paper too big I will fold the edges over rather than cut again. Sometimes I cut the paper too small and have to make a square patch of paper to cover the bare spot. If no identifying print shows through the spot I won’t cover it. Weird shape items we usually wrap with strips of paper and lots of tape in a manner similar to paper mache, it’s just funnier that way.
That all sounds pretty depressing when I write it out. It all looks OK under the tree.
My mother in law had the same paper for over 30 years. It was some kind of huge roll end from the factory. At first it was nice then as it got closer to the end of the roll it would lose one color every few years until it was just an outline of the pattern.
