DIY gift wrapping

It's no secret that I love wrapping presents. Possibly even more than I like buying and giving them. That's a whole lot of love. And people seem to like the way I wrap presents - that or they are too polite to tell me to stop sticking loads of crap on to their gifts! But I thought I'd share some of my gift wrapping ideas over here - and I might even turn this into a mini series, as I had so much fun wrapping up empty boxes for this post!

I went with a blue/green/white colour scheme and, as always, wrapped my presents (ahem, empty boxes) in plain brown kraft paper first. If you're not a fan of kraft paper you can buy rolls of cheap white paper from loads of craft/stationery places which will do the job. I also wanted the presents to have a romantic vintage vibe, but without being overly mushy...

 all the gift wrapping bits and bobs were things I had already - I know not everyone will have the same things lying around, but this is where you can improvise. I have a whole tin of old stamps and just picked out some blue ones to cover the front of this present (pick a small gift for this one, it actually takes quite a while sticking all those stamps on!) if you don't have stamps you could use old ticket stubs, labels, cigarette cards.... just use your imagination

 here I played around with layering lots of bits and pieces - the very back is a scrap from a french-english dictionary, then there is a heart shaped doily, and I secured them by tying some velvet ribbon around the present. Finally I added a bow fashioned from a scrap of fabric, plus a tag with a 'Z' cut from sheet music stuck on it. Try using different papers layered on top of each other, and add a personalised element with an initial tag.

 I went for a bit of a sewing theme on this one - it's wrapped in an old sewing pattern (look out for them at car boot sales or charity shops - I picked up a stack for 20p each and they are great for wrapping small gifts in!) then I attached a silver heart doily. Finally I threaded a few neutral coloured buttons on to some paper twine and wrapped this round the present. The recipient can keep the buttons and maybe use them in a project.

this is so simple but looks really effective. I cut a piece of kraft paper to the right size then simply stuck strips of coloured washi tape on to it in a diagonal pattern to create striped paper! you can get washi tape in every colour and pattern imaginable, so you can create custom wrapping paper.

 I made pom poms from three coordinating colours of wool, then wrapped wool around the present before attaching the pom poms - this is particularly good for kids presents, but who doesn't love a pom pom?! you can also skip the wool wrapping bit and just tie one piece of wool and attach the pom pom to that. I'm not really into the whole 'less is more' thing!

 and finally I had to make some custom wrapping paper using this adorable stag head stamp - I used white ink to contrast against the kraft paper, but you could use any colour and any stamp to suit your needs. I tied some rough twine around the present and embellished with a lacy bow, a tiny glass bottle, and an old key. Raid your own craft supplies and see what you could attach to a present - any jewellery charms, buttons, fabric scraps, or small toys and trinkets which you could thread some ribbon through would look awesome.

Right, well I hope that has inspired you all! It's made me want to wrap up even more presents... maybe I will wrap some with a spring/Easter theme for the holidays? xoxo