Earlier this fall, I did an interview with Bankrate for a holiday article they were doing called ‘Frugal Gift-Wrapping Secrets from Holiday Pros’.  Although early in the season, I already had some ideas about what my personal wrapping scheme would look like, and shared a bunch of my ideas with them for the article (and can we talk about being called a ‘Holiday Pro’?!).

Using packing paper and butcher paper was one of my suggestions because not only is it easily adaptable, but you get SO much more per roll than you do a fancy wrapping paper.

Here is how I dressed up plain paper to look and feel expensive with a homemade stamp.

I started out with a simple piece of scrap wood from a 2 x 4 that we had lying around and wrapped some twine 16 or so times.  When you’re wrapping the twine, don’t overlap on the face of the stamp or else you won’t get a flat surface.

I used a brush to apply the paint so that I didn’t get too much paint pooling up on the wrapping paper.

 

 
I rotated the direction of the stamp, but you could as easily keep it going the same direction for a more striped effect.  I did all of the painting at once on pre-cut pieces of paper that were as long as my table.  I let them dry overnight before wrapping.

I like to mix up fully patterned gifts and solids with strips of pattern going down the center.  I used pieces of greenery and pinecones as gift toppers tied on my rounds of yarn and bakers twine.  The yarn, twine, and natural toppers keep things so frugal that I was able to splurge on some glittery letters for a few of the gifts.

I am very pleased with how the paper turned out and plan to make a bunch more this weekend! These first few gifts are headed out today to Nashville for my sweet little nephews and niece.

Have a FABULOUS Thursday out there!