How to Wrap a Gift

It’s high time I did a simple tutorial on how to wrap a gift.  Never waste another inch of gift wrap, and never again cry out “Why God, WHY?!” when all your efforts still end up looking like you pulled an old lunch bag out of a garbage can and wrote your best friend’s name on it.

So here goes.

How to wrap a gift: A photo tutorial

How to wrap a gift

Ingredients:

  • wrapping paper
  • ribbon
  • scissors
  • tape (or glue if you want to look extra fancy)

Wrapping a gift : A dummy's guide

Step 1: Measure your gift wrap

This is actually pretty simple once you get it, but bear with me through the explanation.  If my explanation doesn’t float your boat, you can try another version here (but there are fewer pictures).

Take your gift box or gift item, and put it in one corner of your wrapping paper.

Wrapping a gift : A simple guide

Roll it along the bottom edge of the gift wrap, until you’ve rolled every side (e.g. if it’s a box, roll all four sides along.)  Add about a centimeter, and draw a line—this is where your first cut will be.

Wrapping a gift : A simple guide

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Pick up the box and put it face-up where you stopped, so the edge is at the line you drew. Roll it ONCE up the other direction of the paper.  So only two of the sides have been rolled (or if it’s not a box, HALF of the gift).Add about a centimeter, draw a line—and this is your second cut.

How to wrap a gift tutorial

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That’s it.  Cut the paper along the lines.  It should be perfect.

How to wrap a gift tutorial

Step 2: Fold & tape

Put your gift upside-down in the center of your paper.

How to gift wrap : A step by step guide

Take the longest sides and bring them together, so one overlaps the other. Make sure they meet in the middle of one of the sides.  Tape here.  If you’re fancy, dab a bit of glue under the top piece and hold it to the bottom piece until it dries.   This way you’ll have no ugly tape.

How to gift wrap : A step by step guide

Now we do the sides—the trickiest part of wrapping a gift.  With the pieces that stick out over the end of your gift, you want to fold in the sides.  IMPORTANT:  Make sure you don’t push the box down through the paper—you need the same amount of space on the other side.

How to gift wrap : A step by step guide

You should start with the side that has the overlapping pieces.  Fold it flush onto the box.

How to gift wrap : A step by step guide

The best way to make them stay put is to crease up the edges of the adjacent sides once you have folded the first one down.  Next, fold down the two adjacent sides, and the final side down on top.

How to wrap a Christmas gift

Tape or glue it down, and do the same on the opposite side.  I did one side tape and one with glue so you can see how it can make a difference to the look.

Gift wrapping tutorial How to wrap a Christmas gift

Congrats—the hard part of wrapping a gift is done!

 

Step 3: Ribbon

To cut the ribbon to the right length—it should be the circumference of the box one way + the circumference the other way, plus 4-6 inches for the bow part (bigger if your box is quite big).  So if you put your box at the end of the ribbon, and roll it along it until all four sides have touched—then turn the box the other way and roll it the other way, then add 4-6 inches.  OR you can always just cut it super long and then trim at the end.

Find the middle of your ribbon.  Put the box onto your ribbon in the center, with the overlap-side (the bottom) facing up.

How to measure gift wrap

Pull the ribbon up the sides of the box (doesn’t matter which sides), until they meet at the top.

How to measure gift wrap

Twist them around each other.

How to measure gift wrap

Flip the box over.  Pull the ribbon up the other two sides until they meet at the top of your box.

Wrapping a present tutorial

Tie a bow—like you’d tie your shoelaces.

Wrapping a present tutorial

Step 4 (Optional): Embellish!

I like to add a little twig, or leaf, or something to make it a little extra fancy.  I got these berries from outside—they are plentiful in winter, which sorta makes this also a tutorial for how to wrap a christmas gift.

How to wrap a gift (and specifically, how to wrap a christmas gift!)

Check out some of my other posts on embellishments:  Recycled Gift Wrap DIY and Natural Gift Wrapping DIY .

 

…and that’s it!  I hope this helped with your christmas gift wrapping, or gift wrapping for any occasion!

Custom typography design, cute greeting cards

I’m a sucker for cute greeting cards.  Combine that with my love of custom typography design, and you’ve got me.

That being said, one of my favorite graphic designers at the moment is Angel from Design & Happiness (who also happens to be a buddy of mine from school).

Custom typography design, cute greeting cards

Angel puts her awesome graphic design skills to work with not only fantastic custom typography design, but really cute sayings and drawings to boot!

Custom typography design, cute greeting cards

Her cards vary from sweet and romantic, to silly and fun.  The next one resonates really well with me—I’m a total jerk when I’m hungry.  I usually call it the Hunger Grumps, but now that I think about it, Hangry expresses the grinch-tornado even more accurately:

Custom typography design, cute greeting cards

Another super fun one:

Custom typography design, cute greeting cards

And at the moment her shop is all filled with cute greeting cards that are winter-themed, such as the one below:

custom typography design, cute winter greeting card

Want to see more?  Head on over to Angel’s Etsy shop, or check out her website here for more info about working with her.  She can do custom cards, website, wedding invites/photography, and more!

Natural Gift Wrapping DIY – Autumn Gift Wrap Ideas

I think Autumn is a lovely time of year—things are cooling down and the leaves are starting to fall from the trees.

….and because of all this, it’s also a great time for me to post a natural gift wrapping DIY!

Natural Gift Wrapping DIY

Step 1: Go for a walk

Take a stroll in the Autumn air.  On your journey, gather up some twigs, dead leaves, and perhaps some lovely dried berries.  If you don’t have any gardening twine, grab some from a garden store (the dollar store usually has it too!).

Natural Gift Wrapping DIY

Step 2: Wrap your box in kraft paper

This is the base layer of how I wrap the majority of my presents. It looks fancier and classier than other types of gift wrap, in my opinion—and is what helps give the boxes their natural gift wrapping feel.  If you don’t have any of it lying around, use an inside-out brown grocery bag or a brown lunch bag.  If those are also not available, a piece of newspaper (text mostly) can be an ok substitute.

Natural Gift Wrapping DIY

Step 3: Twine it up

The brown twine is also important for the natural gift wrapping feel.  Tie it either centered or off-centered.  Off-centered can give an even fancier vibe.

Natural twine gift wrapping DIY

Final Step: Try out different combinations

Go nuts with the collection of leaves and stuff you’ve collected.  Usually one or two different items is sufficient—like some twigs and berries, or a dead leaf and an acorn, etc.

Natural Gift Wrapping DIY

 

And you’re done!

I have another post with some more intricate natural gift wrap DIY ideas, so if you like this style go ahead and check it out!

Want to check out some other posts on natural gift wrapping DIY?  Check out some of my favorite blog posts on the subject!

Recycled Gift Wrap DIY – Or, Gift Wrapping Handmade Products

I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in my life I became nutty about cute gift wrapping. Combine that with an eternal love of crafting, upcycling, and generally being thrifty….and you have the perfect storm.

Part of my job here at Fair Ivy is to ensure that the gifts sent to our monthly surprise subscribers are wrapped in a cute and unique way.  We know that a good chunk of the experience of getting a monthly surprise package is the actual unwrapping event—so the gift wrap is definitely an important part!  However, a lot of our new favorite artists are facing gift wrapping handmade products for the first time, and it can seem like a daunting task.

But over the years, the great thing I’ve realized about gift wrapping is that the more mis-mashed, recycled, and made-up it is, the cuter and more personal it looks.  Take the image below for example:

Recycled Gift Wrap DIY - Or, Gift Wrapping Handmade Products

To make this, I started with the inside of a brown paper grocery bag.  I found a piece of random scrap fabric and cut a strip, and used 5 pieces of blue/green string to go on top of it.  I made the little white dots with paint, and plucked a small leaf from a plant outside.  The tag I just cut out of a scrap of paper I rescued from my recycling bin.

I spent nothing on the wrapping whatsoever, yet it looks a lot more adorable than your generic wrapping paper job.  It also feels a lot more like it contains some kind of quirky artisan bath product or handmade jewelry—in other words, it looks thoughtful.  It took about 10 minutes, but most of that time was waiting for the white paint to dry.

Wouldn’t you squeal with delight if you received that as a gift from a friend?  They probably would think it was wrapped by a fancy store, rather than recycled gift wrap from your own home!

Recycled Gift Wrap – A super straightforward DIY

So, using recycled gift wrap is a great way to gift wrap handmade products if you have a store (like on Etsy), or if you just want your personal gift to have an extra thoughtful vibe.  There are a thousand ways to do something like this, but I’m going to do the absolute simplest version I can come up with—in the hopefully unlikely scenario that you are at home and literally have no crafting materials like ribbon or paint or even gardeners twine.  In my opinion, it isn’t the absolute cutest way you could wrap something—but it takes a very bare-bones approach if you have no materials.

This style is best suited for a smaller gift, like jewelry.

Recycled Gift Wrap - Easy gift wrapping ideas

Materials:

  • Brown paper (e.g. grocery bag)
  • White paper strip
  • Pen
  • Some sort of a piece of a plant—flowers, leaves, dead twigs
  • Tape or glue

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With your pen, create all kinds of linear floopity patterns (that’s a Lucy-ism) on the brown paper.  You can really do anything, but if you know of something in particular that your gift recipient likes, include a line of some of those—like cats, for example.  I included a line in cursive that says “Happy Birthday Sarah!”, since this gift is going to Sarah for her birthday.

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This took a few minutes.  Wrap it on up using tape or glue.  I like the pattern to go diagonally across the box, but if you’re more of the straight-laced-variety, you can align it.

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Add a white strip of paper around the thinner part of the box, and then a smaller strip of the same brown paper on top of that. Slip your plant piece underneath—and you’re done!

Recycled Gift Wrap - Easy gift wrapping ideas

Recycled Gift Wrap DIY - Easy gift wrapping ideas

I hope you give it a shot—if so, tag a picture on Instagram or Twitter (@fairivy #HandmadeGiftWrap).  You could probably even create this from random papers sitting in your car, if you’re seriously having a last-minute panic—I may give that a shot next and see what happens!

Anywho, wrap on!

Fair Ivy: Now a Vegan monthly subscription box

Fair Ivy - vegan monthly subscription boxBeen looking for a vegan monthly subscription box?  Well you’re in luck….Fair Ivy is now a vegan-friendly subscription box!

I have been toying with the idea for awhile, but it wasn’t until I started doing some work with the vegan film and recipe company Forks Over Knives that things really started to click.

Fair Ivy is now vegan-friendly.  Get handmade monthly surprises in your mailbox with this vegan monthly subscription box

 

Vegan Monthly Subscription Box : What does it mean?

Firstly, it does NOT mean:

The move towards Fair Ivy being a vegan-friendly subscription will not change the style, vibe or quality of the items you find in the hand-wrapped gifts mailed out each month.  It also does not mean that the subscription is targeted only at vegans (e.g. you won’t be receiving any vegan cheese!).

It does mean:

What it means that we will not be selecting artists or handmade gifts that are not vegan-friendly.  None of our handmade surprise gifts are made from animal products, nor are tested on animals.  This also includes the gift-wrapping for each of the surprise gifts.

We think this is a positive move towards a healthier and more kind gift box experience, and we are happy our company can make this move for both ourselves and our subscribers.

I hope you enjoy the changes, and would love to hear any feedback you might have on this new concept of our handmade subscriptions now also being a vegan monthly subscription box.

Warmly,
Lucy
Fair Ivy Owner

 

Handmade Floral Scarf

Handmade Floral Scarf - one of the surprise gifts that get sent monthly from fairivy.com!

In June, subscribers received a gorgeous floaty handmade floral scarf just in time for summer fashion!  Made by TingLisa, this was our first surprise scarf in a really long time and our first-ever summer scarf!

Shall we open up the package?  Let’s go!

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We always love cute handmade stickers or tags.  It really just drives that handmade feeling home!  And that sparkly paper?  Too cute!

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Handmade Floral Scarf - one of the surprise gifts that get sent monthly from fairivy.com!

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TingLisa’s artist info card reads:

My name is Ting Ting, full time MIT employee, part time Etsy shop owner.  I grew up in an artist house, where my grandfather was an architect; my aunt is a music conductor.  Upon their influence I started making crafts since elementary school, won a few awards in the school district.  When I became adult, I developed tremendous interest in beading and jewelry designing, made a lot of jewelries for friends and coworkers as wedding gifts.  Lately, I shifted my focus into designing fabulous and stylish women’s fashion items.

At TingLisa, I strive to create fun, vibrant, unique and functional fashion accessories.  This month I am very excited to present my newest product—the Cutest Floral Print Scarf.  This light weight scarf is super soft!  It hugs your neck with the gentlest touch and incredible amount of happiness.  I chose this floral print because it is perfect for warmer sunny days, and I designed the scarf wide enough to be worn as a shawl and long enough to tie around your neck twice as an infinity scarf, to create a versatile look.  To see more of my unique creations, please stop by my Etsy store.  Happy Summer!

Handmade Floral Scarf - surprise in the mail from Fair Ivy

Handmade Floral Scarf - surprise in the mail from Fair Ivy

Handmade Floral Scarf - surprise in the mail from Fair Ivy

Handmade Floral Scarf - surprise in the mail from Fair Ivy

Handmade Floral Scarf - surprise in the mail from Fair Ivy

Handmade Floral Scarf - Fair Ivy surprise gift

Handmade Floral Scarf - Fair Ivy surprise gift

Handmade Floral Scarf - Fair Ivy surprise gift

Handmade Floral Scarf - Fair Ivy surprise gift

Handmade Floral Scarf - Fair Ivy surprise gift

Handmade Flower Scarf - Fair Ivy surprise gift

Handmade Flower Scarf - Fair Ivy surprise gift

Handmade Summer Scarf Print - one of Fair Ivy's monthly gifts they mail out!

It’s hard to express in photos just how soft and lovely this scarf is.

So we suggest scooping one up to see—if you weren’t a subscriber in June, head on over to TingLisa to pick one up yourself!