SNOWFLAKE PRESENT EMBELLISHMENT

A fun embellishment for a Christmas or winter birthday gift.

As I tried going "green" and not purchasing any new wrapping paper,  I used mailing envelopes and old magazines to wrap presents and to embellish some of them I cut out snowflakes and attached them to the "wrapped" presents and the names written in marker and attached to the present with tape or a glue stick.

Above is a white mailing envelope embellished with a tan mailing envelope with the bubble side out

This present was wrapped in a magazine page, as is the snowflake that turned out sort of a honeycomb/rib cage effect. 

You could use any snowflake design you would like, but sometimes it is more fun to fold up the paper, make cuts and see what you create. 


Happy crafting!

Reindeer Bags

While it looks pretty funky under the tree, these are fun to make.

These are just paper lunch bags with a partial outline of hand for the antlers and parts cut of of magazines and pasted to the bag to make the reindeer and names. 

I made one for a Christmas Throwdown challenge for exchanging our Secret Santa gifts and it was "Kate Moss the Burberry Reindeer" (sorry, I don't have a picture of it).

I used a red button for her nose and glued it to her nose and then created a necklace with a paper bead in the center for necklace. For the antlers I used a partial handprint on the edge of the magazine that had a perfume sample strip and it was even scented!  I wrote "Merry Christmas" at the bottom with gold paper paint and it did look cute and got a few chuckles. 

Misc. Recycled Gift Wraps

It is based on the Risque Reindeer Gift Bag at Cut Out and Keep, except I was going for cute over being risque.

It is made entirely of recycled paper.  The face was from a Halloween craft project from a magazine for a jackolantern and the antlers handprints cut out of two similar shaded magazine pages (they turned out a little droopy - next time I try this I will use cardboard from a cereal box as backing.)

This is based on  Upcycled Gift Wrapping by Vanessa with a tutorial over at Craftzine.  On this one I used the page of a magazine,  a piece of sweatshirt for the bow and cut  out letters of the name kidnapper style from a magazine and glued them on with a glue stick.

This is basically the same concept, except I used a brown paper bag, cutout letter from a magazine and a cut off handle from a red plastic bag for the bow.

This is just an ad from a magazine with the letter for the name drawn on another solid part of page and glued on with a glue stick.

Upcycled Gift Wrappings

Gift package wrapping made entirely of upcycled items.

This was based on tutorial over at Craftzine by Vanessa at Designs by Vanessa:
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/12/upcycled_gift_wrapping.html

Items used:

• Bubble mailer
• Magazine pages
• Scrap of fabric
  
• Scissors
• Glue stick
  

It is the same concept except I used an old bubble mailer instead of a grocery bag, a scrap piece of fleece instead of a piece of sweater (although I love the sweater look - just haven't chopped up any recently so I don't have any scraps) and instead of the cardboard tag I cut out letter for the name free hand from an old magazine.   The piece of paper with the wording is Singular ad.

This was a page out of a magazine with letters cutout then tied with a scrap of green fleece.

Embellish With Cutouts From A Cereal Box

 Give your craft or package a scrapbook look for no cost by upcycling an old cereal box.

The above embellishments used to be part of a box of Mini Wheats glued on an used bubble wrap envelope for a no-cost gift wrap, but it could be used on other projects as well.

When I was cutting out the tokens for the free DVD promotion is hit me to try to decorate a package with the colorful parts off the box.

Items used:

• Cereal box
• Scissors
• Glue or Glue Stick
• Bottle Caps
• Ink pen or pencil
  

I cut out letters from the box into squares of letters and strip from the side for the top of the box.   As there was no letter "i" on the box, I improvised by using a other parts on the box to create the letter.

To make the circles,  I traces around the cap off of a bottle of soda.

"Candle" Recycled Package

 Great for small items or gift certificates!

Upcycle a cardboard toilet paper tube and magazine pages into a "candle" package.

Items used:

• Cardboard Toilet Paper Roll
• Magazine Pages
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun
• Glue Stick
• Packing Tape
• Yellow, orange or red ribbon or paper
  

With side you want on the outside facing down, fold up the bottom of the paper so that it is more of a square shape, but still wide enough to so there are few inches on either side of the tube when centered on the diagonal.   Glue the corner of the edge to the center of the toilet paper tube and roll until covered, then glue the other end.

Put the present inside the center of the tube.

 

Fold the paper on each end over and secure it with packing tape.

Draw the letters onto paper and cut out the letters.  Paste them to the front of the candle.

 

 Fold the ribbon or paper over two inches and repeat, then use glue to the top of the candle

 

Two Minute T-Shirt Present Wrap

I needed to wrap a present quickly for my son's birthday and didn't have much wrapping paper that didn't look girly, so I grabbed one of his too small T-shirts and used it to make an eco friendly present wrap. Items used:

• 1 T-shirt
• 1 rectangular box (I used and empty 24 pk box of Diet Coke)
• 1 rubber band
• 2 safety pins

This t-shirt is a medium, but a larger t-shirt would probably work better. Put the box in the shirt and position the logo how you want it to look on the box. Flip the box over and tie the sleeves together. Fold up the bottom like you would a present and secure the folded up edge by putting the rubber band around it.

Fold up the neck the same way you would a present and secure with the two safety pins. This is how the back looks when completed.

This is how the front looked when completed.

STOPLIGHT GIFT WRAPPED PACKAGE

Fun packaging to wrap up to give to a car enthusiast!

My son just turned 16 and is car obessed, so for his birthday I decided to decorate one his presents to look like a stop light.

Items used:

• Tissue paper
• White printer paper
• Tape
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Jar lid or other circular item
• Markers (optional if you use red, green and yellow tissue paper)

Wrap the present in white printer paper if the box has writing on it indicating what it is the package before wrapping it in the tissue paper (I chose to use yellow tissue for the main part of the stoplight) and secure the pieces with tape as you go.

This turned a little tricky when I decided to buy him a lava lamp that he wanted and it was in a tall, cynlindrical package instead of box. To cover the ends in paper, put in the center of a white piece of paper and draw around it, then cut approximately 2-3 inches away from the drawn circle.

Make cut around the circumference of the piece up to the center circle like so then apply the glue stick to the edges,

Line up the center circle with the top of the item to be wrap and press down each of the tabs individually and overlapping them to and you go so it will be flat around the edges (if you have ever made a tom-tom out of an oatmeal box, it is the same concept). Repeat for the other end if desired.

Repeat the above steps with the yellow tissue paper. For the lights on the stoplight, use a lid or other circular object that is proportionate for your gift box, making one red, green and yellow.

I cut out 3 layers of the green light in tissue paper and glued each layer together.

I didn't like how the red looked and as the base was yellow, needed a different shade of yellow for the other lights, so I used printer paper and colored with red and yellow markers.

Use the glue stick to glue the the red, yellow and green "lights" on the package. I then outlined each of the lights with a black marker so they would stand out more.

EASTER EGG PRESENT WRAP

I was trying to be creative with wrapping my son's Easter present, but short on time. This took about 10 minutes from start to finish. As I already had all of the items on hand, it did not cost me anything

Item used:

• White wrapping paper (or could use a brown paper grocery bag)
• Markers
• Glue

Positioned the item on the paper to be sure there was adequate space all around, folded up at the bottom then cut both sides into the shape of an Easter Egg. Decorated the front of the egg how you would like, then put the item on the inside lower layer of the wrapping paper and apply glue around the edges, the fold the top layer to the bottom and smooth out the edges.

Entry in to Craftster Challenge 34 - Thrifty & Stylish Wraps - "Wraps from Scraps"

I entered the above challenge with the following:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=285682.0

The Guitar Shaped Gift Bag

This is the guitar gift bag for smaller gifts that was fashioned out of a magazine page, plain paper, a ribbon and glue stick with a template made using old CDs. I posted a How-To on Cut And Keep: http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/guitar_shape_small_gift_bag

The Shrektacular Corseted Reusable DVD Wrap

This barely made it in on time for the challenge as I had to get batteries for my camera to take pictures.

I had a design sort of in mind before I started to try to prevent peeking by making it hard to get into and it worked out well, but as I wasn't sure it would work out at all I didn't document the process as I went and now will backtrack to make a tutorial.

Recycle Gift Wraps From Magazine and Catalog Pages:

I also posted recycled wraps from magazines and catalogs. I posted a How-To on this at Cut And Keep:

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/recycled_gift_wrap

WRAPS FROM RECYCLES BAGS AND PAPER Here are wraps made out plastic bags with the tags made out of paper. The idea for the plastic bags were from the following:

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/reusable_christmas_gift_wrapping/versions/1