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I love all-things-Christmas – I’ve said it before.  I like the music (although by the end of December, I’m ready for a new CD), the food, mailing and receiving Christmas cards, I like gift-buying and gift-wrapping.  I think that gift wrapping becomes a chore because some of us leave it to the last-minute.  I admit that I don’t wrap my boy’s gifts until a few nights before Christmas.  Mostly because I don’t want them to see my stash of gifts before it’s time.  When I wrap in a hurry, I don’t enjoy it as much.

Today I want to share with you my tips for wrapping gifts and keeping it fun and easy.

Start shopping and wrapping early

The first thing I do is make a list (I know that you are not surprised) of everyone that I am giving a gift to.  I like to take my time and find the perfect gift for everyone but this takes me time.  I honestly struggle with being thoughtful with gifts.  I love to spontaneously gifts things, but when I have to buy something for an occasion, I go blank.  Since I know myself, I will start adding ideas to this list months before Christmas.  If anyone mentions they need new sandals “I take note” if they need a new watch “I take note”.  Like I don’t literally take note in front of them because that’s awkward, I do try to write it down before I forget.

This year, I knew that my mom wanted a new watch.  How did I know?  She told me in September “I need a new watch” #StraightShooter.  She has one that she uses everyday for work, but she wanted a sophisticated one for the weekend.  I headed to Dillard’s and went straight for their watch section.  By the way, I don’t go to the mall too often but every time I go I wonder why I don’t go more.  Especially during the week, when the store is quiet and during the holidays when they go all out on the decorating!  The store was in full Christmas style and it was beautiful.  I thought I would even share a picture of that…

There were quite a few watches but I decided on this Anne Klein 3-piece box set.  I love how it already has the matching bracelets and how classic this set is.  It is fashionable but not too trendy, so my mom will be able to wear it for a long time.  My mom (and mua) loves rose gold-tone jewelry and she loves sparkle – the Swarovski® crystals add just enough bling, which is exactly what she wants.

I know she will love it!

These beautiful watches are packaged in a box that are easy to wrap and as soon as I came home, that’s what I did.  That is what I do when I buy gifts – I wrap them right away and skip the bows so that I can stack the boxes inside a cabinet.  Once my tree is up and ready for gifts, I will add the bows and tags.  In this case, I went ahead and added the bows because I wanted to share with you some easy gift-wrapping tips.

Create a gift wrapping station

I have shared with you how I organize my gift wrapping cabinet, but before I had that set-up, I had a large bin full of tissue, wrapping paper, bows, tape and a pair of good scissors.  It makes wrapping a lot easier when everything is at hand.

Trim your paper the right size

I love those nice gift wrapping papers that have the grid outline on the inside.  It is so much easier to cut straight using that grid, but in this case I followed the stripe outline which was visible on the underside of the paper.

Always fold the paper over your gift before you cut it, so that you don’t have too much leftover paper around your gift.

 

Use double-sided tape

I like to use either double-sided tape or invisible tape when wrapping gifts, this way you don’t see as many tape marks.  Of course, that’s just me being picky but well…that’s just me. 🙂  Admittedly, when I am wrapping the boy’s gifts, I look like a madwoman and I would use purple tape, if that was handy!

Make sure that the seams are not at the very top, as that will be your main presentation area.

Make sure that the edges are sharp and tucked in.

Add embellishments to the gift wrapping paper

I love adding a thick lace, a paper doilies, a strip of another gift wrap paper or a piece of tissue on top of the gift-wrapped box.  It’s all the textures and layers that make this gift wrap look fancy.

I added tissue paper that I folded lengthwise on top of the gold-striped paper.

I love the two different designs together that are “tied” by the same color.

Use ribbon instead of ready-made bows

I do use ready-made bows when I wrap the boys gifts.  Geez, I feel horrible about the boy’s gifts…  With everyone else’s gift, I like to finish off the wrapping with a ribbon.  It makes such a difference!  I purchase ribbon during the year when it goes on sale and especially after Christmas.  It’s not that expensive and you don’t have to worry about crushed bows.

Add greenery to your gift

As if the pretty ribbon were not enough, this takes it over the top.  It really makes the gift come to life when there is a little sprig of greenery attached to the gift.  I often purchase bowl filler holiday bags and use the greenery for my gift wrapping.

I add a little embellishment to almost all my gifts.  If bought in a large bags, these little sprigs are pennies.

Create your own gift tags

This is the time of the year that I actually use all those punches that I purchased years ago.  Back when I told myself that I would scrapbook our memories weekly….sigh.

It is so easy to create your own gift tag or little gift accent by using punches, like the ones below.

Or you can print this free printable  that I have created for you…

You can cut it as squares or as an imperfect circle, like me.

I then hole punched a little hole and fed a string through the opening, to add my tag.

 

Assign kids a specific gift wrapping color or print

One last tip – I have been doing this for a few years now and it’s one of my favorite tips.  I still write the boys names on their gifts but I will usually pick one to two gift wrapping rolls per boy and tell them on Christmas morning which one is theirs.  This way they all know which their gifts are and they don’t mistakenly open one of the adults gifts.  I would hate for them to open one of those since those are the ones with the invisible tape and all.

I’m kidding.

I hope you all enjoyed these tips.  I think this year I will kick up my wrapping for the boys because this post made me feel super guilty!  Ha!

This is the finished product.  Isn’t she pretty?  

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful time of the year already.  What color/colors of gift wrapping papers will you be using this holiday?  Which of the Ann Klein Box Sets is your favorite?