A Tutorial ~ How to Make Your Own Vintage Style Gift Wrap

 

I don’t know about you, but I am a gift wrapping enthusiast ~ I love to wrap my gifts so that they’re as beautiful on the outside as they are on the inside... 

Of course, gift wrap can become quite costly, especially if you’re like me and love to wrap each little gift individually...  Thus I decided to find a creative and beautiful way to save the pennies...

As we have a number of old books in our home and because I love using book paper in my craft projects, I thought that pasting them together would be an ideal and inexpensive way to make pretty wrapping paper...

  The process is simple and the end result very effective...  And when the wrapped gift is decorated with ribbon, lace and other lovely bits and pieces, it looks rather vintage and beautiful and certainly very girly.

Recently we ladies attended a bridal shower for a friend and I was so excited to gather and wrap some goodies for the bride’s new home...  And as she too loves vintage, I decided to wrap her gifts in book paper and decorate the gift wrap with handcut fabric motifs, lace and ribbons...

After wrapping and decorating each little gift, I stacked them all on top of each other from largest to smallest and tied a big pink bow around all the packages...  Then I placed a small house ornament on top for the bride-to-be to hang in her new home...  What fun I had!  I was so blessed to be able to make something beautiful for someone else to enjoy...

And as I love to share ideas with my dear readers, I have put together an easy tutorial for you to follow...

All you will need for this project is...

To make...

An old book, pages torn out

A glue stick or double sided tape

To wrap and decorate...

Sticky tape

Paper and fabric scissors

Ribbons or lace in desired colours

Pretty fabric in a floral or other print

Start off with one piece of book paper...

 Place a piece of double sided tape or smear a bit of glue along the straight side of the paper. 

 Adhere two more pages to this area so that the rough edges are facing outwards ~ this gift wrap is supposed to have a rough, vintage look to it so don’t try to be too perfect as it will in fact spoil the end result...

Now add more pages in the same way until you have a piece of gift wrap that is large enough to wrap your gift...  Paste down any loose pieces of the book pages as you go along.

 

As with commercial gift wrap, you will need to measure and cut a piece from the handmade wrapping paper so that you have straight edges in order to fold and tape it neatly together...

Now you can wrap your gift.  Make sure you choose the best side of the gift wrap and don’t try to be too much of a perfectionist...

Once it is neatly wrapped, you can add a length or two of ribbon and/or lace ~ I used a bit of both on mine as I love a layered look...

Use sharp fabric scissors to carefully cut flower or other motifs from patterned fabric...

Use a glue stick to paste the fabric flower motifs in a random pattern on your gift.

{If you have more than one item to wrap, use different ribbons and pieces of lace for each one, making sure you use a similar colour so that they look as if they belong together. 

Stack the gifts on top of the other, starting with the largest and working your way up...}

Now secure a large piece of ribbon or lace or both around all the packages and tie a beautiful bow on top.

Either slip a handmade card in between the gifts or tie a little tag to the bow...  Or you could use a handmade ornament as the gift tag as I did in my first gift ~ be as creative as you like!

Do share your lovely ideas for wrapping gifts in a creative way...

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