DIY Gift Wrap Ideas

It's less than a week until Christmas, so of course I have all my gifts purchased and wrapped under the tree.


Nope. That was a lie. I have not wrapped one. single. gift. I haven't even bought them all yet! Though, to be fair, I am relying on Santa for the bulk of our family's presents. You guys are all on the Nice List, right?


Well, if, like me, you will be doing all your lovely gift-wrapping on Christmas Eve in-between baby bedtime and Santa's arrival (because we all have to be asleep when Santa comes, obviously), here are some DIY gift-wrap ideas to inspire you! Then again, if these sound like too much work, I would encourage you to embrace the time honored tradition of easy peasy gift wrapping via gift bag + tissue paper :)

Brown Paper Packages - Dress up plain postal paper for unique gift wrap.

May Your Nails be Merry & Bright - Gift tag idea for nail polish gifts.

Wine Bottle Gift Tags 

Neon Lines  - Go crazy with washi tape.

Blooming Blossoms - An elaborate way to dress up a special gift.

What's your gift-wrap style? Crafty? Easy? Get it gift-wrapped at the store? Let your teenage daughter wrap most of the gifts? (I'm lookin' at you Mom and Dad!)

Happy Wrapping :)

Neon Lines Washi Tape Gift Wrap

Last week was bookended with joint birthday parties for Calvin's friends. The first weekend we celebrated Autumn and Zoe's birthdays and the following weekend it was Sydney and Lydia's party. I got these four girls all the same present (hee hee) and of course I was excited to have an excuse to come up with some kind of fun gift wrap. Back at Easter, I used this skinny neon washi tape to decorate some of our Easter eggs and I really liked the effect. Plus it was fun to do!

So I decided to use the same idea to wrap the girls' presents and I think they're totally rad!

This is officially my new favorite way to use washi tape! And this skinny, brightly colored tape is officially my new favorite washi tape. I got it from Michael's craft store and it came with 8 different colors. This random-looking way of wrapping it round and round is pretty simple to do, but a little weird to explain. Basically, you don't choose which direction to wrap, you just follow the angles of the package, keeping the tape flat as you go.

Start by wrapping your gift in plain brown paper or a solid color wrapping paper. 

Then choose your tape colors and pick one to use first. You can start the first line anywhere and cover up the "loose" end of it later. I started mine on the side of the package, at an angle. Lay the tape down in a straight line until you get to the edge.

When you go over the edge, pull the tape taut to keep it flat (meaning no bubbles or weird creases) and it will sort of change direction. Lay it down flat, following the direction it takes and keeping it straight. Each time you go over an edge, pull the tape taut so that you can lay it down flat. Follow whatever direction keeps it flat, turning the package as you go.

With this one, I got lucky and the tape went right over the "loose" end where I had started.

I like to cut off the end so that it meets another part of the line, hiding the "loose" end.

Start your next color so that the "loose" end connects to part of the first color and just keep wrapping and keeping the tape flat - no bubbles or creases. 

You can use the second color to cover up the "loose" end of the first color if needed.

I topped them with big white letter stickers and I absolutely love how they turned out! Kinda makes me want to pull my hair back in a scrunchie and watch Saved By the Bell. 

Blooming Blossoms Gift Wrap

Haven't had much time for crafting lately, but I've got a few past projects up my sleeve waiting to be shared ;) So here's one that I think would be perfect for Mother's Day! I made this gift wrap to decorate a birthday gift for my dear friend Rachel. As I've said before, I like to use plain brown postal paper and decorate it instead of buying wrapping paper. I like having the opportunity to get crafty and I also enjoy the challenge of dreaming up a creative way to dress it up.

For Rachel, I wanted to do something pretty and nature-y and I ended up putting together this 3-D flower design! I've done similar things with hearts and butterflies. This concept is definitely adaptable.

Materials:

Plain postal paper (or other wrapping paper)

Card stock

Paper punch in the shape of a flower*
Scissors
Pencil
Glue or adhesive dots**
Optional: embellishments like pearl or jewel stickers

*If you don't have a punch, you could cut out flowers by hand.
**I used foam adhesive dots. The foam dots add some height because they are thick.

-Start by wrapping your gift with the plain paper or wrapping paper.

-Punch out your desired number of flowers. You'll need at least two flower punches for each flower in the finished product. Let's call those "blooms." So to make 4 blooms, I punched out 8 flowers.

-Bend each flower petal up towards the center and crease it just slightly.

-Arrange the flowers. For each bloom, stack two flowers together and turn them so that the petals from the bottom one fill in the gaps between the petals on the top one. For fuller flowers, you could try adding layers, but you might have to start making the top layers smaller. Attach the layers together with glue or other paper adhesive, then attach them to your wrapped package.

- Cut out leaves using scissors. I cut mine freehand, but you could print a leaf shape, cut it out and use it as a tracer. Or freehand draw leaves, then cut them out.

- Curl the leaves around a pencil to give them some dimension as well. Then glue just one end of each leaf to the package, arranging them around the blooms.

Honestly, I'm not totally satisfied with how the leaves turned out. Next time I might crease them down the middle instead of curling them, or maybe just curl them less... But the finished product was still quite pretty!

- Add pearls, jewels or other embellishments to the center of each bloom or around the blooms as you like.

I don't have a picture of it, but I wrote my "Happy Birthday Rachel... Love, Diana" message right on the brown paper around the flowers. It would be cute to add a little gift tag to the bouquet with the To/From.

Have fun, and Happy Mother's Day!!


Here are my previous gift wrap posts if you're interested :)

Brown Paper Packages Tied up with String (4 ways to dress them up for Christmas)

DIY Gift Tags (Embellished gift tags for wine bottles and goody bags)

Turning Two at the Zoo (Turn wrapped presents into habitats for toy animals!)

Turning Two at the Zoo

Calvin loves animals. His favorite toys are his animal figures and his stuffies and he absolutely loves going to aquariums and, of course, the zoo! So what better place to bring him on his birthday than the zoo??

While I got his birthday breakfast ready, Calvin played with his birthday presents without even realizing they were presents! Apparently my animal habitat gift wrap was entertaining enough. 

I needed a brilliant idea for making my usual brown paper gift wrap extra special and exciting for Calvin's birthday presents. Washi tape felt wishy washy. I wanted something more interesting. So I channeled my inner cut-paper collage artist and turned the wrapped gifts into backdrops for these animal figures he already had!

How much fun to have presents you can play with while they're still wrapped! I saved the wrapping after he opened them. I might mount the backdrops on cardboard or something so he can keep playing with them. 

After he enjoyed his beary adorable pancake, we broke the news that we were going to meet his friends at the zoo.

I used banana slices and dried blueberries to make this bear pancake!

He was So Excited all morning. He was signing nonstop giraffe, lion, penguin, zebra, tiger, monkey, friends, Autumn, go, car, elephant, bird, rhino... over and over and over! Yes, yes! We're going to see those things and our friends! Yes, Autumn is coming! Yes, we're going in the car! Now please please please put your foot in your pant leg! That's about how the morning went. 

It was sunny and warm at our house, so I excitedly dressed the boys in adorable shorts outfits and then had a minor nervous breakdown when we got to the zoo and it was foggy and chilly. I should have known! Visitors please note! It is almost always foggy and chilly at the San Francisco zoo no matter what the weather is anywhere else! So we dug up some sweatpants from the car and borrowed a sweater and blanket from our friends and made do. Not that the birthday boy cared! He was just thrilled to be there seeing all his favorite animals.

Hobbes? Is that you?

Watching some adorable monkeys. Oh and the zoo monkeys too. 

Zoo lunch for the birthday boy! Got the inspiration for the giraffe from Swanky Baby.

Calvin's favorite part of the zoo! It's my favorite too. 

Calvin was signing "zebra."

We went home for nap time and then the birthday boy got to open his presents. 

Wearing his new Mickey Mouse hoodie from Granny Anne and playing with his new work bench.

That evening, we met up with some of our cousins at SOMA Streatfood park, which is a food truck park. Calvin dug into his pork bao (a little Chinese sandwich), but he was really excited about his animal cracker cupcakes! 

Calvin picked the tiger! How appropriate ;) 

And birthday fun was had by all! More celebrating to come later that week at Calvin's Hop 'n' Play party...!

DIY Gift Tags

I'm keeping gift giving simple this year: wine for the grown-ups and nail polish for the teens/tweens! But to make it a little more heartfelt, I made some DIY gift tags which I am very proud of.

"May your nails be merry & bright!"

Cute and simple. I made the gift tags on the computer and wrapped the polishes in cellophane so the girls can choose (or fight over) their own colors.

Embellished wine bottle gift tags

I made a bunch of stickers that say "Merry Christmas," "Cheers," etc. by using fun fonts on the computer and printing on adhesive paper. (Some of them are in Tagalog for my Filipino relatives.) For embellishments, I used scrapbook paper, a snowflake punch, rhinestones and pearls, washi tape, and stickers! Now where's the corkscrew...?

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String

... these are a few of my favorite things!

Confession: I watched the new live Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer at least 3 times! I don't love it as much as the original, but I still really enjoyed it and it makes nice background noise :)

Segue to blog topic: Wrapping presents is one of my favorite things! And lately I have been into DIY gift wrap. I stopped buying wrapping paper and gift bags and I just buy plain brown postal paper (it's like $5 for a gigantic roll at Target in the office section). So for the holidays, I wanted to share some ideas for dressing up brown paper packages.

Brown postal paper + white ribbon + some simple embellishments

Let it snow: For a holiday gift, add a cut paper snowflake! 

Stamp happy: I did this one with my toddler's foam stamps for kind of a shabby-chic look, but you could really dress it up with fancy stamps and ink.

Paper punches: These snowflakes are scrapbook paper cut out with a paper punch. Stickers would have a similar effect. For a more elaborate design you could layer shapes or use more than one shape/size/color punch!

Washi wonders: I <3 washi tape! So many fun colors and patterns.

If you are like me and have a stash of craft materials, even just leftovers from other projects, you can probably find embellishments in your own house. Here are a few other ideas:

- Use interesting ribbon... something fancy and chic or with a fun print or texture.

- Add a fresh flower or two tucked under the bow.

- Lay a strip of double sided tape across the package and sprinkle on glitter or confetti.

- Tape a photo to the top of the package.

- Use letter stamps to stamp the name of the recipient.

- Draw a picture or a doodle on the paper (or let your kid do it!).