STORM2K

How do you do your wrapping - do you add bows and pretty name tags and make them fancy. Or do you do like me wrap the gift and stick a name tag on it and be done with it.

With 21 presents on my side of the family and 13 on my hubby's side - wrapping gifts takes me forever....

I like the fancy wrapping. I even like to use candy canes on mine.

Patricia - good topic. Seems it depends upon whose family you're talking about in our case. In my family, my brother's wife goes all out. And very creatively wraps our gifts - she's had her kids hand stamp the paper, with handprints or xmas designs, uses fabric ribbon with the wire in it, along with raffia and various natural ingredients. Her packages look professional! I should add in my family we spend moderate amounts on gifts - kids ($25), our mom ($50 each), ourselves ($10-$15). Contrast that to my husband's family and they go all out in the spending dept. But barely wrap the gifts! They skip bows, ribbon, fancy decorations. The paper is cheap, bought at any drug store. But I'm still shocked at what we spend on eachother, adult name exchange, $75 each. Used to be $40, then $50, now $75 and I wouldn't be surprised if soon they announce we're now spending $100 each. Seems excessive to me. You can find nice gifts for $20!

Families are odd this way. So I skip all the fancy trimmings on gifts for Jim's family. They'd get thrown away in a heartbeat. In my family we all fight over Linda's ribbons - my daughters like to hang them up in their rooms for months after xmas. They're so pretty. I should add she personalizes gifts with puff paint on the ribbons - to Nina, from Linda, etc. I always tell her she could get a part-time job at xmas wrapping gifts!

Linda - you would love my sister-in-law's creations. My mom usually holds the gift in her lap for a few minutes, looking at this year's theme. Since Kris is in Iraq, I wouldn't be surprised if she used red/white/blue for the theme this year (Kara, his wife, is her daughter, got all that? LOL).

Mary

I enjoy wrapping. I started out cutting meat in an old fashion butcher serve counter where every thing was wrapped in the white butcher paper, I got REALLY good at wrapping stuff and it crossed over into my Christmas wrapping abilities, I do bows, ribbon etc, etc.......it takes me forever but hey, it's only once a year!

Dennis

Paper grocery bags or the sunday comics here. It just gets ripped open and thrown away anyway...lol


Just kidding, normal wrapping without bows and such. Ticka, we ahve a bazillion gifts to wrap too, so the easier the better. Except for myt niece, she gets special wrapping. last year I wrapped her gift with about ten layers of duct tape, and superglued the box of her gift shut (plastic box) and put it in a gift bag. Then I booby trapped the gift bag with those firecrackers that are ignited by pulling a string on both sides of the cracker. I hot glued each string to a side of the bag, so when she opened the bag, KABOOM. The best part was that I glued two of these on her gift and got her both times......heehee

Oh my gosh blizzard - firecrackers on a gift. Yeah I have a runnning gag with my brother-in-law one year I ran out of boxes so I used a cake mix box to wrap his gift and he never lets me forget it - so each year I have to use a box of some product and wrap his gift. I like the duct tape - hehehhee gives me an idea to use on my nephew's......

Patricia

Interesting topic. I have enjoyed reading the answers as well. I generally do the simple thing -- wrap it, put a bow on it, and slap on a name tag. It doesn't look bad, but not real fancy.

blizzard wrote:Paper grocery bags or the sunday comics here. It just gets ripped open and thrown away anyway...lol


Just kidding, normal wrapping without bows and such. Ticka, we ahve a bazillion gifts to wrap too, so the easier the better. Except for myt niece, she gets special wrapping. last year I wrapped her gift with about ten layers of duct tape, and superglued the box of her gift shut (plastic box) and put it in a gift bag. Then I booby trapped the gift bag with those firecrackers that are ignited by pulling a string on both sides of the cracker. I hot glued each string to a side of the bag, so when she opened the bag, KABOOM. The best part was that I glued two of these on her gift and got her both times......heehee

What a GREAT Idea Blizzard "ROFLMAO!".......I've done the tape bit, I use the clear packaging tape, the super glue thing but not the firecracker bit! AH MAN...that is GREAT!

Dennis

azsnowman wrote:I enjoy wrapping. I started out cutting meat in an old fashion butcher serve counter where every thing was wrapped in the white butcher paper, I got REALLY good at wrapping stuff and it crossed over into my Christmas wrapping abilities, I do bows, ribbon etc, etc.......it takes me forever but hey, it's only once a year!

Dennis

Dennis - that's exactly what my sister-in-law has used in the past - plain, white butcher paper! Then she would have her kids stamp holiday designs on it. Very clever. I swear my mom used to fold that paper so carefully, treasuring it. Her kids are grown now, wonder if my mom still has that paper?

Blizzard - LOL! OMG, you are too much.

Mary

I hate wrapping gifts, absolutely hate it. And just to make sure everyone knows it I always use like a roll of tape on each present so there is NO WAY you can tear the paper off. Makes me laugh my arse off. I never had to do it until my daughter moved away since she loved doing it and would spend an hour on each present. Martha Stewart's grandaughter, I swear since the original Martha Stewart is my mom. She bought (and continues to buy) all her gifts from either Needless Markup, Sucks Fifth Avenue or Dullards and consequently had them all gift wrapped at the store. I don't think she has ever set foot in a Target or *gasp* WalMart. Which prolly explains why I am such a Marva!

gift bags ,and more gift bags!! but sometimes I will stick a bow on one or two of them. Brown bags work too!!!!!! ( Martha is a cousin twice removed)

Wrap, name tag, and bow!! But I like to wrap gifts!

I love wrapping gifts..

I try to get creative with the adults gifts, and at least one for each child, but do the plain christmas paper for the little trinket goodies...

Blizz, I would love to have seen the look on that poor little girls face.. sounds like something out of a Looney Tune starring wiley coyote!! Shame on you... LOL

My Hubby got me good one year.. he put a roll of toilet paper inside a whole lot of boxes, with duct tape.. took me forever to open it... I was expecting this huge fantastic gift.. when I got down to the toilet roll.. I was so Mad.. actually I was laughing.. BUT inside the cardboard holder of the toilet roll he had sealed off the ends ... when I broke through the paper there was a beautiful gold necklace with a quater Kruger Rand pendant.. I still laugh when I think about that!

i wrap the presents with whatever christmas wrapping paper I can find. then stick on the bows and nametags.... during christmas, the bows usually end up sticking to my hair wrapped up present....just put a nametag on me and I'm ready for christmas.

I love to add bows and name tags to mine. If I'm in the mood, I'll add ribbon and curl it.

I like the metallic paper with a cool laser type of bow on it, for the kids I like to find odd wrapping paper that I know no one else would use (one year I used happy birthday paper) I have even wrapped gifts using 2 different kinds of paper on either side. I have also used the sunday comic's as well.

as for boxes goes, what ever will fit the gift. I have even used a tampon box for a gift I gave my wift one year. that was fun.

I love wrapping each present as pretty as possible. I use kiddie paper for the kids and pretty foils for the adults with lots of ribbon and bows.

I think this year I am going to construct a metal box for my niece's present and weld it shut on all sides so that she needs a grinder to get into it...... I love this part of Christmas, watching her fight for her present. She is my God Daughter, so she gets special treatment...heehee And now that she is 18, her gifts can get more fun too.....

Yep just call me anal!!!! Now you have to understand, I have extra time on my hands unlike some busy Moms here.

All my packages are wrapped in the same paper. This year I picked white paper with gold writing saying "Merry Christmas". I just went to the fabric store and got lots of red satin ribbon and tied my bows!!!

Hey, I'm not that bad ------ I did put on the self adhesive tags!!!!!!!

For me, it depends on the date. The first wrapped gifts a couple weeks before Christmas are real purrrrty. By midnight Christmas Eve, and after consuming a couple holiday beverages, whatever's left is likely to end up in a grocery sack stuffed with newspaper.