I never realized

perfectly wrapped packages make me nervous.

like you're suppose admire them rather than open the gift.

How long have I admired the wrapping?
Have I admired it long enough?
Am I supposed to look at it from different angles?
Am I expected to be careful opening it?

gift bags, tissue, that's it.

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Yes, I almost put in a specific DIAB reference but you guys got it anyway.

What, dare I ask, survives having newspaper wadded around it (we are talking about wrapping a present, right? as in something's in the middle of all that wadding?) with such force that no tape is necessary?

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A baseball?

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a frisbee?

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sozobe wrote:

Robert, I have your salvation -- gift bags.

True wrapping connoisseurs such as shewolf and myself find them evil, which makes me think you'd love them.

Get the bag.
Open the bag.
Put present in bag.
Stuff some tissue paper on top of the present.

You're done. Girly AND less effort than a newspaper wad. (Need tape for newspaper wads...)

And opening...? Could NOT be easier. (Again, lack of tape is a distinct plus.)

I am a devotee of the gift bag.

And I do NOT put tissue in the top!!!!

I have five thumbs when it comes to all the womanly arts, save cooking and making flowers grow.

I was the bane of Mrs Lambrick's (our junior school craft teacher) life.

In adulthood, I tried to learn to sew. I failed SELVEDGE pinning.

We give christmas gifts to clients at work. I got the task of wrapping the gifts for one little fella, whose therapy I share with a colleague. I was TERRIFIED the goddam wrapping would not be good enough in her eyes!!!!

If some bastid where I buy stuff will not gift wrap, I gift bag, or occasionally struggle with the horrors of wrapping. I CAN'T DO PROPER BOWS!!! My paper doesn't reach properly. I tear stuff. My sticky tape doesn't stick. My curly ribbon goes straight.

And I re-use the gift bags others give me. I assume they do the same.

You are welcome to tear open my gifts.

And..I have actually used newspaper....(cleverly chosen, of course).

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I know someone <cough, djjd, cough> who always used the colour comics to wrap presents while on the train on his way home for Christmas. It's the thought (and the thought that went into choosing the gift) that counts Very Happy

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Well, I'll represent an extreme here.

Partially motivated by lack of cash to dole out for, uh, decent wrapping paper, and partly out of holiday boredom..

ok, ok, actual christmas boredom, but sometimes also birthday boredom, or wedding boredom - or maybe the opposite, christmas, birthday, or wedding play time

I'd make my gift wraps a collage. I'd use tear outs from old magazines (I used to subscribe for work to lots of whatdya call 'em, style and design mags) and make up a basic sheet or sheets of, say, 36" x 48" with some interconnection of the tear outs re message/content/colors, scotch taped together at the back of the sheet.

Then came the "ribbon" - string, yarn, looped rubber bands, other paper rolled as "ribbon", paper flower?, and sometimes real wrapping ribbon, that good kind with the wires.....

then the additives, paste on's or tie ons of miscellaneous jewels (left over one earrings..), this and that.

That all sounds like a mess, but I was fairly spare, temperate, with the use of these materials.

Of course I wanted people to notice, and they did; sometimes took photos. Let's say it's an ephemeral art, fun at the time.

I once wrapped a wedding present in brocade.. a sample I had for curtains I planned to sew.

It's like suitcases in the baggage area of airports. Mine was always easy to locate.

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Chai wrote:

perfectly wrapped packages make me nervous.

like you're suppose admire them rather than open the gift.

If someone is staring at something I wrapped, I just ask them if they are going to open it, or should I get a letter opener?

I get a real joy out of wrapping presents.

in fact, I just wrapped our 7 for 'gift-mas'

I call my mom, sit on the phone and wrap while talking to her about my childhood and her wrapping jobs.

The perfection gives me something to obsess about that relaxes me in some odd way. It is a bit of a creative outlet.

I can make some really awesome looking gifts with a pair of snippies, some paper and ribbon.

Last year, I taped a horse head that I made out of ribbon to the tops of Jillians presents.
She didn't notice.
I didn't care.

That is the time of the season that I get to shut the door, and get creative with out being interrupted. I get to talk to my mom about me being a kid and I can lose myself in the thoughts of Jillians childhood and how it must feel for her.

Basically.. it is all about me and not about the gift..

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Ooo!
I want you to wrap a gift for me Osso..

You have my mind spinning now..

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what did you get me?

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sozobe wrote:

What, dare I ask, survives having newspaper wadded around it (we are talking about wrapping a present, right? as in something's in the middle of all that wadding?) with such force that no tape is necessary?

[heavy sigh]

Looks like I'll have to give a newspaper wrapping class...

Ok, you don't wad around the gift, you wad around the top. The secret is using a copious amount of newspaper. You place the gift in the middle and fold the newspaper over it. You should have enough slack above the gift to wad it all together tight enough that it will stay closed for a while.

But here's the big secret, don't wrap in advance. Bring the newspaper with you when you are about to present the gift and prepare it right in front of them so that it doesn't come apart before they get their hands on it. And if it does, you didn't wad tight enough.

Nothing else to it!

P.S. for an even easier time you can just pull out a crisp 1-dollar bill and fold it in half and gift it. That way they can get their own gift, you know, something they'll actually like.

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I took a gift-wrapping class once. From a lovely hoity-toity lady who came to our Junior Horticulturists Club meeting.

I was pretty good at it.

Then I met mrs. hamburger's next-oldest sister. She was a professional wife, and one of her 'things' was gift-wrapping. A maximum of a half- inch of extra paper on any edge - and it was cut right the first time. No more than one piece of tape on the package. The queen of precision packing.

I regressed badly.

I went to gift bags for a few years when they started to appear in Dollar Stores.

I'm wrapping again, but no more curly ribbon and fancy hand-made bows. No more themed gift-and-wrapping combos. Colour comics are fair game now.

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Robert Gentel wrote:

sozobe wrote:

What, dare I ask, survives having newspaper wadded around it (we are talking about wrapping a present, right? as in something's in the middle of all that wadding?) with such force that no tape is necessary?

[heavy sigh]

Looks like I'll have to give a newspaper wrapping class...

Ok, you don't wad around the gift, you wad around the top. The secret is using a copious amount of newspaper. You place the gift in the middle and fold the newspaper over it. You should have enough slack above the gift to wad it all together tight enough that it will stay closed for a while.

But here's the big secret, don't wrap in advance. Bring the newspaper with you when you are about to present the gift and prepare it right in front of them so that it doesn't come apart before they get their hands on it. And if it does, you didn't wad tight enough.

Nothing else to it!

P.S. for an even easier time you can just pull out a crisp 1-dollar bill and fold it in half and gift it. That way they can get their own gift, you know, something they'll actually like.

So...from the above, it would be fair to assume that, when it comes to wadding, you are admirably, some might even say virginally, tight?

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I'm also capable of the old brown paper bag, and "here" thing.

Chai and Shewolf, this'll be fun, thinking of gifts..

Shewolf, since I had the magazines at hand, there were riches to plumb. Architectural Digest, for example, has always been a mag I've loved to hate. Lots of extravagant photos in ads or articles there.

I've had manila folders, in years passed, of stuff I've liked by category, good mag photos. Thus, a kind of source for this sort of collage play.

I need to wrap a notmajor gift for dys and diane. Casts eye at neatly placed brown paper bags within one brown paper bag... perhaps an attempt at doing a dried artichoke flower?

or, that paid for ad machine, the Albuquerque magazine. (I'm well over that. Maybe I'll just cut out smiling selling faces....)

Or the house and garden mags I have stacked to donate to UNM clinics..

We'll see. When I used to do this, it involved some serendipity re zinging content, and that would come from having a batch of tear outs to choose from.

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Meantime, the doorbell rang today. I was at the computer in my robe, unbrushed hair, poor posture, cup of coffee at side. Didn't answer.

Roused myself sometime later, and tucked behind the chair with the 1/3 full bag of planting amendment was a box with Godiva chocolates from one of my cousins. Plain old box, but verra nice.

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Chai wrote:

what did you get me?

something that can not really be wrapped Confused

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Newspaper is good. It can be reused for window washing..

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ossobuco wrote:

Plain old box, but verra nice.

One of the best gifts I ever got was in a cereal box.

My mom had taken a cereal box and used it for a shirt I had asked for.

She re-glued the top ( and was obviously careful when opening it) so that it looked as though it had not been opened, and put that under the tree.

For 2 weeks I stared at that ONE box..
It could have had coal in it.
I loved it. Just loved it

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I like osso's descriptions.

I definitely like that part, the casting about and trying to come up with ideas for what to use for the wrapping.

Today, I was just dressing up a tin of chocolate truffles from Trader Joe's. It had a deep wine/chocolate color for most of it, with some gold highlights. I remembered a silk poinsettia I'd gotten on a gift a long time ago, went and found it (I have my craft haven in the basement, I can actually store and find this stuff now, I love it), brought it back up, yep, perfect match. Same range of colors. Then got some wired gold organza ribbon that I'd bought for outdoor decorating. Tied it once around, put the poinsettia (with dark green leaves, the leaves helped) in the middle and tied, then a big blowsy curvy bow around that.

Pretty conventional, but fun.

I've made my own wrapping paper before. Brown paper bags, potato stamps.

I've used silk scarves (no tape, just careful folding plus ribbon).

Comic pages, of course (just not wadded).

I definitely think it's a repressed creativity thing. Take my chances to express it when I can.

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fake flowers taped to the top of a gift hide the worst wrapping mistakes beautifully.

I too have a 'craft' storage place..
Though mine is no where near as organized as yours sounds.

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I never realized

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