PLAN A PRETTY PRESENT PARTY

Our church has the best Sunday School teachers EVER and one of my sweet friends (who has taught me so much!) leads a group of young career single and newly married girls.  She is doing an awesome job teaching them some practical things about homemaking, and she wanted to do a "wrap a pretty present" party, which I was thrilled to host in our home.

I wrapped some gifts before hand to give the girls some ideas and taught them how to make a bow.  Most of all, it just takes practice!  We asked the girls to bring a gift or two to wrap, and my friend and I provided the wrapping materials.  If you want to host your own party it would be great to ask everyone to bring some supplies and put them all together to pick and choose from. 

I wish I would have remembered to take a few photos of those cute girls and their packages!  They did a great job!  I can never remember to pull out the camera during a party...but always feel a bit strange doing that anyway. 

   

Who doesn't love anticipating what's in a beautifully wrapped package?  Sometimes the presentation of a gift can be just as much fun as the contents.

Over the last few years I've tried to put a little extra effort into wrapping pretty packages.  Of course, I like to be thrifty with the materials used or it could be easy for the cost of wrapping to overtake the cost of the actual gift!

One of my favorite stand-bys is the traditional brown craft paper.  This can be found with the mailing supplies in most stores, but it's now more readily available with the regular wrapping paper.  I even picked up several rolls at our Habitat ReStore for less than $1/roll.

Pair it with greenery clipped from the yard and some simple trim, and you have a classic gift ready in seconds.  The trim with the red edges is upholstery webbing purchased at Hobby Lobby (about $.60/yard with your coupon) and the white is unfinished upholstery cording (less than $.20/yard with your coupon).  I just happened to have a lot of that left over from my recent upholstery project.  This one is finished off with some rubber alphabet stamps and a red ink pad. 

There is nothing extra special about these gifts for my niece (who IS extra special!), other than this is my favorite ribbon to use on Christmas gifts!  And, these gift tags are adorable if you haven't seen them.  You can download and print them for free from Jones Design Company.  There's even a chevron one that's not pictured here...too cute! 

 

Simple craft paper again, with a pretty ribbon and feathers.  I also like these manilla tags that can be found at most craft stores.  

This idea from Polkadot Notebook is so cute!  Make a word search with the recipient's name and circle.  I also included our family's name so they would know who gave the gift.  I like the mix of wrapping the gift in newspaper, and a big poof of curly ribbon is fun for the kids.  This one was for my young nephew, so I used the "cars" section of the classifieds. 

This gift is for my daughter.  I used a letter ornament for the gift tag and made a felt flower using this tutorial.  An alligator clip is hot glued to the back of the flower to make it easy to attach, but will also allow her to use the flower as a hair clip or to pin in on a shirt or jacket.

 Always stock up on fun ornaments that are left after Christmas when you can pick them up for pennies.  They make great gift tags, especially if you get a variety and can match the recipient with a fun ornament they would like from your stash.  This one was plain white and easy to personalize.

More flowers were made for this package for my Mother-in-law.  The two on the sides are the same as the green one above, and the red one in the middle is a little bit different and was made following this tutorial.  I glued a pin backing to it so it can be reused as well.

     

Another ornament tie-on, but this one was one of those ornament frames.  I just popped out the back and used the alphabet stamps again to label for Caleb & Emily.  The big spools of tulle are also a staple in my gift wrapping supplies.  They offer enough colors at Christmas that I buy several and use them on all of my gifts through the year.  Big rolls can be found at Hobby Lobby for around $5 and they last forever.

 

  

Finally, what would we do without good old burlap?  It is the perfect choice for those odd-shaped gifts that are hard to fit in a box.  With a simple ribbon, tag, and sprig of greenery, it couldn't be easier to present a charming gift.

Throughout the evening I asked a few "get to know you better" questions of the girls, and the answers determined the winners of a few door prizes...

a roll of paper, ribbon, and tape!  

By the way, I always buy those packs of white gift boxes when they are WAY discounted after Christmas, and my family probably thinks I'm nuts when after everything is unwrapped I'm gathering up all of my boxes and ribbon to reuse next year.  The boxes fold flat and I cram it in a tub try to re-roll the ribbon so everything is easy to store.

Have you wrapped any Christmas gifts yet?  I wrapped these for the party, but I'm usually the mom up at midnight on Christmas Eve finishing up!  Hopefully I'll do better this year...

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