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The Frugal Homemaker

Your guide to turning your house into a home... one DIY project and yard sale find at a time

25+ Simple & Creative DIY Gift Wrap Ideas (Day 13 of 31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas)

October 14, 2014

31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas - large

This post is part of a series – “31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas”.  You can read all the posts in the series here.  And to make sure you don’t miss a post you can subscribe to have every post delivered to your inbox, or follow me on facebook.

So I don’t know about you but this is pretty much what happens with the gift wrapping situation at Christmas…  I have every intention of getting gifts wrapped way before Christmas Eve but many things have to be done before then like baking, parties, programs, actually buying the gifts, so actually wrapping the gifts gets put off to the last minute and I end up dreading the job instead of enjoying it.

The other thing that frustrates me about gift wrapping is I am sort of over the multiple patterns of paper (10-20 rolls that I have to store every year, several bins of ribbon, etc.)  Most of it has been bought for very cheap on after-Christmas sales but honestly I would just like to have a lot LESS of it taking up valuable storage space in my house.  Because I have several containers of paper, ribbon, tags, bows to store they get pushed farther back in the closet under the stairs and there is no way I am going to get them out to wrap a birthday present during the year.

BUT if I had 2-3 rolls of paper – some brown paper, maybe a solid color paper, and a polka dot/striped paper and one small bin of ribbon it would be much easier to store and easier to pull out to wrap a present in mid year (instead of buying and using expensive gift bags.)    Because be honest – which would you rather receive?  A gift in a store bought gift bag you know took 2 seconds for someone to throw inside or a gift wrapped like one of the gifts below?  It wouldn’t even matter to me what was IN the gift itself, I would enjoy the gift inside even more because of the extra few seconds of time, creativity, and effort in how the present was wrapped! Smile  (Maybe that’s just me – but I love pretty and creative things!)

25  Creative & Easy DIY Gift Wrap Ideas

So let’s browse some ideas for wrapping gifts simply, yet creatively and many can be done with simple brown Kraft paper you can get at the dollar store or craft stores.  Just pick up a colored or plaid ribbon or some string and you can have creative, neutral, pretty wrapped gifts.  I think it would be fun and easy to pick a “theme” each year and just wrap all the presents the same – and it will look so pretty under the tree too!

Because who doesn’t love brown paper packages tied up with string??? Smile

Brown paper tied up with simple string

tied with string

Candy cane tied on top with jute twine

Snowflake embellishment – you can find these in the ornament section 10 for $1.00 or so at Dollar Tree, Wal-Mart, or Target.

snowflake

Embellish with pinecones and ribbon

pinecones on present

Embellish with greenery and pinecones

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Use doilies on brown paper

doilies on brown paper

Lace and satin bow – this could be for ANY occasion

lace and satin bow

Have your kids cut some snowflakes out of plain white paper and use them as embellishments.

cut snowflake

Or have them cut out the snowflake out of colored paper for a gift topper.

snowflake-gift-topper

You can do so much with Washi Tape – I really need to jump on this bandwagon and try it.

washi-tape-26-600x406

Write the names of the recipient right on the paper!

brown paper packages with gold names

Or stamp them on the paper

stamped names on brown paper

Reuse brown paper bags as wrapping paper – these holiday ones from Trader Joe’s are so cute!

Trader Joe's holiday bags for wrapping paper

Brown paper can have so many different looks depending on what you do with it – I love this plaid ribbon.

1 gift wrap (3)

Or use burlap ribbon.  They have all kinds of printed burlap ribbon too.

adorable-burlap-christmas-gifts-wrapping-ideas-_sxzq

You could embellish some brown paper with some printed paper

christmaswrap

Or go with a simple striped/polka dot/patterned paper and a solid color ribbon. 

1 gift wrap (2)

Here’s black and white polka dot paper

polka dot gift wrap

I love this chalkboard wrapping paper done with black kraft paper and chalk markers.

chalkboard wrapping paper

Here’s a simple patterned paper idea

happy-holidays2011

Use sheet music (or paper that looks like sheet music – I have seen it for sale in the stores) as wrapping paper.

sheet-music-wrap-1209-de

Use a solid color paper with a pretty ribbon

red gift box with white ribbon

Wrap gifts with burlap

adorable-burlap-christmas-gifts-wrapping-ideas-_sxzb

You can even use brown paper bags embellished for some cute gift bags.

brown paper bag with candy cane

Or use one of those craft punches to create a pretty border on a brown paper bag.

Valentine181

If you need a fun gag gift idea – wrap your gift in the comics!

wrap gifts in comics

Have your kids help you create some fun crafty wrapping paper like this Christmas lights wrapping paper

DIY Christmas lights wrapping paper

Looking for some simple tags – here’s some free printable tags. 

free-printable-holiday-gift-tags-almost-makes-perfect

Make these DIY chalkboard labels out of regular black paper

DIY chalkboard labels

There is a customizable printable so you can print these initial tags to embellish a gift

Free-Monogrammed-Gift-Package-Lables-by-For-Chic-Sake

Which one was your favorite?  How do you wrap your gifts?

7 Comments LABELS ~ 31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas

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« Make a detailed to-do list (Day 12 of 31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas)
Wrap gifts as you buy them (Day 14 of 31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas) »

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Comments

  1. Lanita says

    October 15, 2014 at 7:22 AM

    Christina,
    I love all of the great ideas you’ve shared for wrapping gifts! I have several of those pinned on Pinterest and love the creativity! I loved the polka dot paper, as well as the ones wrapped in craft paper and embellished with different ribbons and tie-ons. Thanks for sharing!
    Lanita

    Reply
    • Christina says

      November 4, 2014 at 12:16 AM

      so glad you are enjoying it!

      Reply
  2. Beth Hynes says

    October 24, 2014 at 7:48 AM

    I love the idea of having one or two rolls of really simple paper (especially brown paper, so classy!) and then getting creative to make it pretty 🙂 I, too, have a container filled with the ends of all kinds of wrapping paper and bows. It is such a pain to get out every time I need to wrap a present. This would be so much easier! I’m gonna try to use up my stash this year so I can start with a clean slate 🙂

    Reply
    • Christina says

      November 3, 2014 at 11:43 PM

      I am with you! Trying to use up my stash too so I can just use 1-2 rolls of simple paper.

      Reply
  3. Melissa says

    December 2, 2014 at 12:26 PM

    I love all the brown paper ideas! I have been wrapping gifts in brown packing paper for several years now; it’s become one of my favorite traditions. I may just have to try some of these variations!

    Reply
  4. Zane Goldsbrough says

    July 4, 2017 at 6:42 AM

    thank you for sharing this simple gift wrapping this design. i’ll use this for giving presents. very nice ideas!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. 12 Gorgeous Gift Wrapping Ideas • New Mama Diaries says:
    December 11, 2014 at 12:29 PM

    […] | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7| 8| 9| 10 | 11 | […]

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Hi!  My name is Christina . . .

I love doing simple, frugal things to make our house feel like HOME! Come learn along with me how to have a beautiful home on a budget.

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