waysideviolet - cozy, lovely things

I love wrapping presents. That might sound funny, but it’s true. For me half the fun of giving a gift is wrapping it up nice and pretty. Lately, my favorite material to use is brown paper, because it is just so useful and because it feels like a blank slate. It can easily be dressed up for all kinds of occasions. I like embellishing with lace and ribbons or buttons and twine.

I wanted to give Joel’s birthday presents an air mail feel this year, so I wrapped everything using double-sided tape (clear tape looks weird to me on brown paper), the top and smallest gift on the pile got a piece of air mail ribbon and securing everything with twine.

They turned out just how I wanted them, too. (The little present was a book that I am so proud of finding! I’ll have to photograph it sometime.)

I’ve mentioned before that it seems like everyone in my life was born in the Fall. (It’s not true, but ever Fall it sure does feel like it!) Tonight we’ll be going out to celebrate a friend birthday I kept his gifts simple:

Brown paper, double-sided tape, twine and a fox tag from Oh, My Cavalier!

I’m thinking about using brown paper for wrapping Christmas gifts this year, but I can’t decide if I want to print a design on the paper or leave it plane and use lots of plaid ribbon, cinnamon sticks and holly. Plaid + holly is sounding the prettiest right now.

Tags: giving, handmade, pretty wrappings