by Ruth Belena

Created on: November 19, 2010

It is not necessary to purchase expensive wrapping paper when you have holiday gifts to wrap. You can save money and be more creative in your Christmas gift giving when your gifts are not packaged using traditional patterned paper or metallic wrapping. Your Christmas gifts become much more personal, and each recipient will see that you have put some thought into the presentation of your gift.

If you search your own home or office you may find unwanted sheets of paper or pieces of material to use for wrapping Christmas gifts. Almost type of paper can be turned into festive wrapping paper, including plain paper, double page spreads from magazines or newspapers, left over strips of wallpaper, and unused rolls of lining paper. These can easily be customized to make Christmas gift wrapping paper.

Leftover pieces of satin and silk fabric, printed cotton, thin sheets of plastic, vinyl, felt or netting, are also effective when used to wrap holiday gifts. Fabric offcuts, remnants and end of rolls can easily be obtained at very little cost.

The type of decoration you add to your alternative forms of wrapping paper is what makes the biggest impact when you give holiday gifts with individually designed wrapping. Shapes such as stars, squares, circles and crescents can be cut out of plain or patterned paper or any flexible thin material. You can easily find seasonal images to cut out, or choose popular cartoon characters to paste onto your background paper.

· Use any safe adhesive or quick drying paste to stick shapes and images onto the wrapping material, making patters or composite pictures. It is better to do this before you wrap the gift, and extra decorations can be added after wrapping.

· Make use of any ribbon, twine or thread you can find, to finish off your gift wrapping. Add some home made bows or braid some metallic and coloured threads and finish off by tying into a bow.

· Sprinkle glitter, sequins or small shiny cutout pieces onto areas of packaging, after pasting or spraying on some type of adhesive.

All that remains for you to do is make a matching gift tag, or write the name of the recipient directly onto the packaging with a glitter pen or in colored ink. The more you co-ordinate the colors of your all your materials, decorations and tags, the better it will look. Contrasting or matching colors can be used creatively, or a classic look can be created with gold highlight, red ribbons or pieces of white lace.

When you start wrapping your gifts creatively, using alternative materials, scraps and craft supplies, you may never again want to spend money on printed or metallic wrapping paper. Your family and friends are sure to admire your creativity and innovation, and they might even want to save the packaging to re-use when they want to wrap a holiday gift for someone else. 

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