Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17
It's a Christmas miracle, folks. We got our holiday gift shopping done early this year! Well, early for us. And instead of waiting until 10pm on December 24, as is my typical nonsense, I decided to start wrapping my gifts early, too! For the past few years I have wanted to put a personal touch on the gifts given from our family, but have settled with the quick and easy, (though still fun and festive!), gift wrap found at the local supermarket or dollar store. This year, however, I've decided to finally put some of my gift wrapping ideas to use! I've got two in particular that I want to share with you:
Rustic, monochromatic gift wrap- with a unique tag!
Start saving your newspapers! I'm loving how this neutral patterned gift wrap tied with twine turned out. Add a hit of color by using playing cards as your To/From tags! Grab a deck for a dollar at a local dollar store and you've got 52 gift tags! For an extra personal touch, (and just a dollar more), grab a red deck and a blue deck and use red cards for girls' gifts and the blue cards for boys' gifts.
Custom initialed gift wrap - no tag needed!
This idea came to me recently as I was remembering last Christmas. We had two two-year-olds and a nine month old, and everybody was opening everybody else's gifts. After 20 crazy minutes my husband and I looked around and realized there were opened gifts lying on the floor because they were opened by the wrong little hands, (despite our efforts for some kind of order!) :) This year I thought of a fun way for the kids to distinguish their own gifts from everyone else's. Monogrammed gift wrap! They can (mostly) properly identify letters and colors, so I used different color inks and basic letter stamps to make customized gift wrap. I just used the white side of the wrapping paper, wrapped the gifts up, and went to town stamping their first initial all over. Now on Christmas morning we can tell Colin to find the blue 'C's, Shire the purple 'S's, and Mason the red 'M's. This idea doesn't just have to be for families with multiple children! You could do this for anyone! It's just a little personal touch that feels special, I think. An entire pack of alphabet stamps is $10 at Michael's, and ink is less than $5. And it literally took me about a minute to stamp an entire gift, especially since I wasn't trying to be perfect or precise :)
Please know that while I do enjoy offering you these ideas, I am also one who often appreciates convenience when it buys me more time to enjoy my family and the simple pleasures of this season. When I find myself with a long afternoon if the kids are napping well, it's fun for me to do these kinds of things....but it's also good to recognize the reality of your time constraints and prioritize what is most important. In other words, I am all for the cute wrapping paper at the dollar store up the road! Shoot, if I knew the person who invented gift bags, I would give them a huge hug!
Thanks for stopping by! And happy wrapping, (or gift bagging)!
~Chelsea
This post was originally featured on Chelsea's Garage, now affectionately known as StyleMutt!