It can feel good to tell yourself that it’s not the gift that counts, but the thought behind it. In reality, though, the gift does matter; why, the wrapping paper on the gift matters, as well. Which is why wherever possible, people go so far as to take their gifts to a local department store for professional level giftwrapping; they want everything to be perfect.
Unfortunately, service of this kind doesn’t come cheap, and it takes time. While gift wrapping a medium-sized box at home could cost you about $5, stores, when you take the time to go there and stand in line, are likely to charge twice as much (Amazon, though, only charges $6). When you apply the difference over a dozen gifts, it’s a sizable sum. What you need is to find a way to do it yourself, and still make it professional looking.
Your first challenge: making sure everything doesn’t look the same
If you’re like most people, you simply buy a tube of wrapping paper, and get to work wrapping everything. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it would be nicer to have each gift look somewhat unique. A good part of the work involved in wrapping your gifts by yourself, then, turns out to be working to make each gift somewhat different. Fortunately, a number of easy ideas do help you out here.
You could, for instance, wrap your gifts in plain brown paper, but buy fluffy little pom-poms of different colors to stick on them. Not only will you have special 3D wrapping, your gifts will look unlike anything else those lucky recipients receive.
Photographs, Washi tape and potato stamps are other ways to effortlessly make each gift to look pretty and unique.
A gift bag, instead of wrapping, can be a winning idea
A few gift shoppers have no idea there’s been a major change taking place in the world of gifting. If you don’t feel like going to the trouble of gift wrapping your gifts, you need to know that it isn’t really considered mandatory anymore. Popping each gift into its own beautiful gift bag is just as acceptable. Nine out of ten shoppers use gift bags at least some of the time. They use them for gifts that are difficult to wrap, or to be able to do something different.
Don’t forget that there the box toppers and ornaments
Some stores such as Ornamentshop.com specialize in a unique gift presentation idea — while all your gift boxes may have the same wrapping paper, each could get its own unique character with a pretty little box topper, and an attractive ornament. It’s an extremely popular idea that’s catching on.
There is the possibility of recycling gift wrapping
If you vaguely recall seeing people carefully open the gift wrapping on their gifts sometimes rather than tear it all off, there may have a reason — they may want to reuse it. Recycling gift wrapping is common enough that it’s estimated to happen in half of all homes. When you try it, you get dozens of different gift wrapping paper to use on the gifts that you give out. It’s actually good for the environment to do this.
Melanie Berry is a working mom who enjoys sharing her passion for craft and gift ideas online. With Christmas just around the corner, she is looking forward to offering some of her ideas and is a regular writer for several home and lifestyle websites.
