Sheana’s addendum to Jenn’s Guide to Gift Wrapping

So Jenn made this kind of extraordinary guide to gift wrapping, which I almost totally agree with. Plus, if you look at her presents at the end, they’re gorgeous! But, tastes will differ, so I’m offering up my, er, tips, in addition to Jenn’s most excellent ideas on wrapping.

Oh, and before I share pictures, why does it matter? As Jenn says, “if you’re going to give someone something, you should do it right.” Wrapping doesn’t have to be pricey or expensive, or even new - you can use comics or other neat paper if you have stuff lying around, and you can do with or without the ribbon. This is pretty much only useful, though, if you do do the ribbon thing.

Jenn’s instructions say to only go in one direction, because “there is no cutting required – your recipient can just slide the ribbon off the gift.” I agree that it’s important to make gift-receiving easy for the recipient; sometimes it’s hard enough to get open the packaging of the actual gift, so taking the wrapping off should be a relatively simple affair.

But! I think you can take the ribbon in other directions without making it harder to open. For example, my favorite look - the classic boxes - can be done by just cutting a length of ribbon long enough to go around one way and taping it under where your ribbons/bow will go. Then, you tie a length of ribbon around the other way - if you’re using a bow, just cut enough ribbon to overlap a centimeter or so and tape that under the bow as well.

If you’re going with the fluffy ribbons, proceed as per Jenn’s post. And voila!

Of course, I’m also somewhat partial to the parallel corners method - wrapping over one corner, crossing under the bottom and a bit of tape when they meet over the other corner if you’re using a bow, or a tie if you’re using ribbons. Sometimes if it’s a little flopsy, you can put a smidge of tape on the sides over the ribbon to hold it, but you generally don’t need it. And again… voila!

My last tip, and it’s just a teeny one, is to avoid those pre-fabricated ribbon bunches - you know the ones, with sixty ribbons all tightly curled and stapled in the middle.

The curls are just too tightly wound, and when you try to fluff them they get all tangled. And then the whole bunch falls off, because it’s too heavy and bulky to be held on with the 2cm square bit of tape they attach it to. So just avoid it all together.

In conclusion, 1. if you’re giving gifts, wrapping them doesn’t have to be a pricey affair - just use something simple and on-hand if you can’t afford to go out and grab wrapping paper, and 2. wrapping is always better if you do it while watching Logo’s multi-hour block of Diva videos.