Holiday Bridal Shower Gift Wrap

Want your special shower gift to look professionally wrapped? Or homemade? Or stylishly elegant? We developed some wrapping solutions that range from very basic to a little more - how shall we say it? - involved.

Whether you wrap to live or live to wrap, Jeff and I attempted to feature wrapping ideas for all present personalities. Jeff taught me some things about wrapping a Perfect Present. For one, pull the wrapping paper tightly, without tearing,as you cover the surface, and tape it tightly. This gives a smooth, professional finish to the gift. Also, tie the bow separately, then hot glue it on the gift. The ribbon won't get smashed, and the bow is easier to maneuver.

The Glorious Gift Bag

We love gift bags. They're cheap and make big awkward things like espresso makers easy to wrap. We had some pine cones left over from last year's potpourri, so we took this plain gold gift bag, hot glued two pinecones to the front, and tied a wired french ribbon in a big bow to the handle. Not too hard.

The Snowflake Wrap

For this shiny snowflake package, we first wrapped the box in silver wrapping paper that we got at a craft store. Then we took some 4" x 3" laser printer labels, folded them in half, and drew half a snowflake on one side of each of them...like you used to do in grade school...only sticky on one side.

With a little bit of doing, we managed to cut out the snowflakes, still folded in half, with an Exacto pen knife. We carefully opened the snowflakes up, peeled off the label, and eyeballed the placement of the snowflakes when we stuck them to the wrapping paper.

Warning: this is a time-consuming craft project. The results are gorgeous and unique, but whoa! For time efficiency, we suggest using bigger labels and making bigger snowflakes - unless you're a crafting goddess, or have hours and hours to spend making little label snowflakes.

The Traditional Wrap

Easy as Christmas pie. Believe it or not, we got the very Saks Fifth Avenue looking wrapping paper at an after Christmas sale at, of all places, Wal-Mart. Clever little shoppers, aren't we? All we did was add a little gold and ivory ribbon from the local fabric store, and hot glue an old curtain tieback to the bow. This gift looks really spiffy, we think, and it took no time at all to put together.

Wedding Gazette