Wrapping It Up

With Christmas less than a month away, the presents piling up in the spare room or under the stairs and the fact that you've lost your roll of sellotape again despite having bought an extra 12 last year to avoid this conundrum - it's about time to get down to wrapping. Wrapping easy gifts, awkward gifts, giving up and putting it in a bag, they're all things that we're familiar with but another thing I always experience is wrappers remorse. It's basically a condition I find myself afflicted by when I realise that none of the eight rolls of festive themed paper I've bought is quite right. The bows are too cheap looking, the tags keep falling off, the paper looks like the rest in the four hundred photos you've seen on Facebook of your peers wrapping their presents (and they always look better than yours) and that, my friends, is wrappers remorse.

I've found a great way to combat this and it's simple, a firm favourite with craft lovers and all over Pinterest. Yes, it's brown packing paper or Kraft paper. Plain, brown, slightly boring but oh the possibilities! Whether you tie a simple cream or coffee coloured satin ribbon in the traditional way, add lace into the mix, attach a candy cane, bake a tree decoration to use as gift tags, glitz it up with sequins or bows, hand stamp, write all over it, draw all over it, add foliage and berries - well, as you can see any way you want to dress this plain, boring paper up it looks fantastic and timeless. Whether it's a gift for a family member, a friend or secret santa there's just something a little more special I find with that plain, brown, boring paper as opposed to the shiny offerings littering the high street.

Now my wrapping never looks as good as the examples in the photos and if yours does please find me, attach me to a chair and force me to watch your ways because every year I just end up giving up halfway through to vent my frustrations on Twitter. I'm going to be taking inspiration from the above photos this year just as I did last year and with a little pritt stick and a little perseverance 2013 may be a late bloomer for the winning year.

How do you wrap your gifts? Do you have any tips, tricks or techniques to share?