Creative "anytime" wrapping!

With a special thanks to Pinterest, I decided back in November that I wanted to do something a little different with the gifts I was giving this year.  I found about a million ideas on Pinterest, but I knew I would not know exactly what I wanted to do until I went shopping for all of my supplies!  

Besides the alphabet stamps that I already had, I did not have anything else to decorate the gifts, so I dragged my wonderful bf to Hobby Lobby, and by dragged I mean he gave me 10 minutes to find what I needed.  Little did he know how big and how much awesome stuff Hobby Lobby had, so about 30 minutes later I finally came out with some cool ribbons, twine, and pom-pons.  But this was not all I needed, I still needed to wrap the presents, I finally found the brown craft paper I was looking for at Target (if you are curious, after Christmas I found a huge double roll of the paper at Wal- Mart).

Once I was finally ready to sit down and wrap all of my presents, I intended to wrap them all first then decorate them later, but that plan did not work out and I ended up decorating them as I wrapped them.  It may have taken a little longer than a normal wrapping job, but it was really fun deciding how I would decorate each person's gift!  

Here are some pictures of my favorites (which is just about all of them!) 

I hope these tips below help you get creative when wrapping!!

1. Lace, ric-rac, buttons and twine were my favorite to use.  I also acquired a new love for bakers twine, I now have green and red with every intention of adding more colors to my collection.

2.  I tried to have use a common theme when decorating, such as a color, but I found that I liked to decorate based on who the gift was for.

3.  ANYTHING can be used!!!  My mom had a bunch of old fabric scrapes that I used.  I used sequins, lace, and pom-pons strung on thread too.  Anything that can be wrapped around the box is perfect!

4.  Add a little something extra for the kiddies!!  I included a lollipop ornament to make theirs a little more special.

5.  My best "investment" was purchasing the alphabet stamps!!  They were about $25, but I figured after spending money on gift tags it would probably equal about the same.  They are nice too because you can add what ever you want, not only names!

6.  Mix and match different colors and materials.  I loved the look of metallic ric-rac paired with grey velvet ribbon.  

7.  Some of the decorations can be saved and reused, especially the buttons and ric-rac!!  

8.  Use paper other then craft paper!  Maps, newspaper, and even paper grocery bags would be cool!!

I hope this has inspired y'all to take a little more time and custom decorate your gifts!!!  

Have fun and get creative!!!

mSs