Craftin' Ernest: Wrapping Paper

I love wrapping presents, so much so I'd do it as a job if I could.
Having said that I can feel rather guilty about the frivolous nature of wrapping gifts with paper and the cost to the planet. I always try to unwrap things carefully so I can reuse the paper for something, be it to wrap something else or to make a card or line something, whatever it is it's good to reuse and is cost-effective too- a nice bonus! There are some really gorgeous papers out there that are such good quality they can be used over and over, especially if tied with ribbon instead of using sticky tape.

I'm always on the look out for for things to use as wrapping paper or to make gifts bags etc.
With this philosophy in mind I rescued some paper from work recently after the photocopier had a "software malfunction" and printed out a document as a series of lines similar to a barcode. Most had an overall green appearance due to the stripes being blue, yellow and black and some were just black and white.

I immediately thought the green tone paper would make great Christmas wrapping and the black and white could be easily jazzed up.

I made a gift bag using one sheet of the green, just the right size to pop a few small Christmas presents before finishing it off with a festive bow. I used a box of tea as the base structure (see below) and began wrapping as per normal at one end but without sticking anything down. I then drew a flap template at the other end which I cut out with scissors. I stuck the edge and the folded end together with double sided sticky tape and attached a strip along the edge of the flap, ready for sealing.

Using this wonderful origami tutorial from the delightful Gathering Beauty, I used two, green sheets to make a box. I finished it off with red and white striped washi tape along with a gift bow made with the same tape and plain paper off-cuts. It's just right for a Christmas present of jewellery.

I used a pink and a yellow highlighter to spruce up a sheet of black and white, I thought this was "bang on trend" ;-) as neon is everywhere at the moment and would be good for my friend's birthday as she likes bright colours. It looks great with black ribbon

Making your own stamps as in this post is a great way to personalise plain paper into something a little more special and could even make newspaper a possible source?!
The other black and white sheet was calling out for haphazardly stamped, hot pink bumblebees and to be made into a gift bag.

I covered it with transparent, sticky vinyl then I used the same technique as the Christmas bag, although, this time, I stuck the edge and flaps down as I went.

I then folded the top 2cm down all the way around and cut 2 holes in both of the wide sides approximately 1cm down. I threaded a piece of ribbon (liberated from inside a cardigan) through each side to create handles and used a bead on each end before knotting for extra security. I also popped a rectangle of card in the bottom for a bit of extra strength.