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Thursday, January 17, 2019

Classy, Free Gift Wrap for a Small Gift


So this is not quite free, but very close. My cost was the printer ink and copy paper. I have figured this cost to be about 4 cents per page.  I didn't need a lot of gift wrap, just enough for one small package and one slightly larger package. I ended up using 4 sheets of printed paper, for about 16 cents for both gifts.


Those gifts that I bought at clearance and semi-annual sales now need wrapping. The above gift is part of a birthday package for someone who is special to me. Wanting a chic and classy look for this birthday gift, I decided on a black and white color scheme. (By the way, this is very inexpensive to do with home office supplies.)



Using free clip art, I made this pattern on my laptop for printing onto a sheet of paper. In my experience, Apple Pages seems to work better for cut and paste of images than MS Word, so it's what I have used here and with other printed images.

The small gift used 3/4 of a sheet, while the larger package used 3 sheets, with strategic piecing to minimize visible seams. The most obvious seam runs across the center of the package and shall be concealed with ribbon.


I did invest some time making the pattern, but I considered this fun, down time. In addition, I now have this pattern stored on my laptop for future use.

For a price comparison -- I could have bought some gift wrap. Even at the Dollar Store I would have spent $1 for wrap, and likely would have used about 1/3 of one of their small rolls, or 35-cents' worth. Printing gift wrap at home was about half of the price of the least expensive option for me, meant that I could skip a trip to the store, and was an outlet for my creative energy.  A win all around! And I don't have any leftovers lingering in a closet, as I printed only what I needed.



11 comments:

  1. What a great idea, and it turned out beautifully.
    I like to wrap gifts in brown kraft paper and use red and white baker's twine as a ribbon.
    - Tina

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beautiful paper, Lili! It reminds me of The Prudent Homemaker.

      Tina, I thought this was a pretty idea to use with brown kraft paper: https://thistlewoodfarms.com/simple-vintage-farmhouse-wrapping-diy/

      Delete
    2. Hi Tina,
      I love using the red and white baker's twine at Christmas. In place of a bow, you can tie a sprig of pine or fir into the knot of the twine. With brown craft paper, the red/white twine sounds welcoming and homey -- lovely image!

      Delete
    3. Hi Kris,
      Thank you. Yes, Brandy uses a lot of French images. I believe she gets many of the images from the same pace that I do -- Graphic's Fairy, a great source for vintage images.
      Thanks for the link to thistlewood farms. I love the look of newsprint on the brown paper, with white and silver trimmings. Very cute idea. I'll have to keep that in mind for next year.

      Delete
  2. Very nice! Where did you find the clip art?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kathryn,
      Thank you.
      I use Graphic's Fairy -- https://thegraphicsfairy.com/
      Many of her images are free, but some are subscription only. For the lettering, I just chose a font from Apple Pages that I liked and added the diamond spacer from Pages' "special characters" list.

      Delete
  3. If anyone wants the pdf file to the gift wrap sheet that I put together, send me an email and I can forward the file to you.
    email: lili.mounce *at* gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. We recently make a purchase where each jar was individually wrapped in brown paper. We decided to keep this brown paper in our stash so we can use it someday for gift wrap.

    Alice

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Alice,
      You are a resourceful person! You know, I have come across all kinds of paper and bags that are useful for nice gift wrap. I think your saved brown paper will make great wrapping paper.

      Delete
  5. I like that you factored the price of the ink into the cost. While not a lot, the cost of ink can add up over time. So many people say what they did cost nothing when they are printing at home which is not technically true.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi live and learn,
      it is tempting to say this was free; but as we do use our printer a lot, I will have to buy more ink and paper at some point. So not quite free, but it did use what we had in the house. If I was going to throw out the ink and paper, then I'd maybe consider it to be free.

      Delete

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