Southport Magazine

Holiday gifts wrapped in style – without breaking the bank

STORY BY: AMI BROWN

Brown paper packages, tied up with string. These are a few of my favorite things. When it comes to wrapping presents this holiday season, I’ve found a few simple things you can do to make your packages look amazing – without spending much money. Let’s face it, all that lovely wrapping paper and bows just end up in the trash anyway.

Use what you’ve got! Most of us have a junk drawer full of little knick- knacks, broken parts, and random objects – perfect for decorating the tops of gifts. With a little gold or silver spray paint or glitter, these things could be the perfect topper. For instance: buttons, old keys, twine, single dangle earring, mardi-gras beads, and old piece of lace or scrap material.

Let Nature In! Take a look outside – small evergreen cuttings make a great bow replacer. Little holly berries, a bundle of twigs – spray-painted, cinnamon sticks or leaf can make the perfect addition. No need to spend money on a bow when you can make one yourself. Scrap yarn can be turned into a pompom and tied right on top.

Print it out! If you are at a loss for paper – get on the Internet and Google search “free printable holiday paper”. You will get lots of choices. Instead of wrapping an entire present with a printed design – let’s face it, that’s expensive, just print one page of designs, and cut out strips or vignettes and glue them on. Remember sometimes less is more when it comes to design.

Use your own creativity! If you have a little bit of creativity you can sponge paint a cute pattern, using polka dots is the easiest. Start with your brown paper, newsprint or tissue paper. Use the eraser end of an old pencil as the dotter, sparingly dabbed in paint. You can also stencil small designs on or just get a pack of holiday source: makeanddocrew.com stickers and place them on. Some ideas for unique wrapping paper includes: old sheet music, old pages of a torn book, newspaper, and old shirt, notebook paper, paper bag, magazine pages, paper doilies, wall paper samples (or scraps), or scrapbooking paper. These can be painted as little or as much as you want. Keep it simple, stick to one or two colors for the best effect. Black and white makes a stunning statement and looks beautiful under the tree.

Plan for next year! Save all your Christmas cards this year, because they make the perfect tags for next year. Just cut out the image on the front – usually people only write on the inside page anyway. They are one of a kind decorations and a nice way to recycle. When you use that hole punch, instead of dumping all those “dots” save them in a little zip lock bag to use for “confetti” decorations on the tops of your packages or even on your centerpiece.