Personal | Boise, Hawaii & San Diego
December 20, 2012Wedding | Kristy & Reid
December 28, 2012One of the skills I’m so thankful I got from my mom is my ability to wrap gifts well. When I was a little girl our home looked like a page from Southern Living at Christmas (and the rest of the year, for that matter)…. there was NEVER red or green anything, though. When I was in Elementary school, hour living areas were all pale yellow and cream…. so of course, our tree was too. As I got older, Mom redecorated and everything changed to pale pink and cream… and our tree did too.
Along with no red & green decor, meant no “traditional” wrapping either. One year she I think she bought stock in mylar… because all our gifts were wrapped in gold mylar paper…. (that is the hardest stuff to wrap with, it doesn’t crease!!). The older I’ve gotten, the more and more I appreciate this… and have tried to adopt it in our home. Now, of course the no red & green doesn’t fly with my husband, but I’ve tried to marry Mom’s gift wrap talent, with the hubs need for traditional red & green.
I think when I was about 5 or 6 my mom went into a shop in Durham (Morgan Imports) where she had seen or heard they wrap beautiful gifts, she had the sales girl teach her to make bows…. and from then on, our presents were the most beautiful you’d ever seen. I’m a firm believer that beautiful presentations are well worth the effort.
This year, I spotted some red on red polka dot at TJ Maxx and some red & gold stripe…. wrapping paper, check! Now… ribbon… you cannot and will not find traditional gift ribbon on our gifts… only real, fabric ribbon. It’s a must. So for this tutorial…. you better have the real stuff, or it won’t work. I tend to avoid Michaels when it comes to nearly anything because it’s normally over priced…. but I went in knowing it was a good spot to locate nice ribbon (side note: if I’d had time, and thought about it, I would have ordered from Ribbon Retreat…. that’s where all our ribbon for the business comes from)…. there it was… sparkly, leopard ribbon! I grabbed one roll of it, a roll of hunter green & one roll of skinny gold….. all the holiday ribbon was (and still is!) 70% off! (I went back yesterday and loaded up again!).
So here’s our fancy-schmancy wrapping tutorial…. prepare to amaze your loved ones.
1. Wrap your gift. This means USE A BOX. No bags, no exceptions.
2. Tie a piece of ribbon around your box.
2. Cut 2 pieces of ribbon equal length. These were about 18″ each. The longer your ribbon the more loops, or bigger loops you’ll have. So if you need a big bow, go longer length… or if your making a small bow with skinnier ribbon, go shorter.
3. Loop your ribbon. My mom would always loop around something (I showed below with my external drive)… but she often would make “templates” out of pieces of cardboard. The length of your loop, will be the size of your bow…. so if you need a big bow, make a bigger loop…. have I lost you yet?
2 Comments
I vaguely remember this tutorial from our beach house getaway… emphasis on the “vaguely” 😉
So miss the beauty of your Mom’s packages!! Glad to see the tradition lives on. Happy New Year!