All my friends and family members know just how much I love to wrap. Christmas presents, birthday presents, anniversary presents, just-because-it’s-Tuesday presents… I even like to origami tips at restaurants. This next week has to be the biggest wrapping week of the year so I thought I’d share a very basic way to create a pretty package with nice clean lines.
Gather your supplies. For this look, you’ll need two contrasting papers; tape; scissors; any bows, ribbons and embellishments you’d like to include; and your gift. The main things to keep in mind are tape is your friend- use it; crease, crease, crease; keep things as snug and tight as possible.
1) Use your gift to measure out the amount of paper you will need and cut.
2) Flip the paper over the top to be sure you trim off the right amount.
3) Line up the straightest edge of your paper with the edge of the box and crease along the opposite edge.
4) Holding the box in place, bring the other end of the paper up (make sure it’s snug!) and tape it.
5) Bring the clean edge back over the flap you just taped down and tape it down.
I’ll show you two ways to get nice clean edges on your box’s ends. Method 1:
6) Fold the top side down, crease along the top and angle creases along the sides. The angles will fall right into place.
7) Fold the two sides in as shown and crease them. Fold a little flap up at the bottom to hide the raw edge.
8) Flip up the bottom end and tape into place.
Method 2:
9) Instead of folding the top down as before, fold both of the sides in and crease the angles on the top and bottom of each piece.
10) Fold the top edge down, crease. Fold a small flap in on the bottom to hide the raw edge.
11) Fold the other flap up and tape into place.
12) Cut a length of contrasting paper long enough to wrap around your box but at least a few inches smaller in width. You can also use tissue paper for this step- it looks really pretty, too. Fold each edge in to hide the raw edges, taking care that the paper ends up the same width on each end.
13) Tape one end of the contrasting paper into place, folding small corners in as shown.
14) Bring the other end up and over, taping into place.
15) This is what your finished box should look like.
16) Embellish with ribbons, bows, berries, raffia or anything you please!
This present is for my dad and I can’t wait for him to open it on Christmas morning! I think he’s really gonna love it. But for now, mum’s the word. :)
