Life as a LEO Wife

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Christmas is just a few days away. Can you believe that?! This year has absolutely flown by. I have all of my Christmas shopping finished, I just need to wrap a few more gifts. Today I’m going to share some cute ways to gift wrapping ideas for your Christmas presents and ways to embellish them with cute bows, scrapbook paper, tags and other adornments. I’m also going to share a few of the tricks that I use to keep those little present shakers from guessing what’s in the box!

Suggested supplies for gift wrapping:

• gift wrap: I used kraft paper and a metallic sheen red paper with white snowflakes
• tape
• scissors
• ribbon: I used a variety of sizes, 1/2″, 7/8″, 1.5, and 2.5″. Wired ribbon is best for big loopy bows.
• pipe cleaners or floral wire for bows
• Dollar Tree Christmas stockings
• Christmas themed scrapbook paper
• Christmas stamps
• metallic & Christmas colored markers & calligraphy pens

Scrapbook Paper Gift Wrapping Ideas

I used a Christmas theme scrapbook paper pack from Michael’s to do several different embellishments on my kids’ packages. There were several pages with tags and small squares with things like “Comfort & Joy” with cute little designs on them. I cut them apart and used them on the wrapped gifts. This year I didn’t use tags on every gift. I felt like my writing on them was detracting from the gift, so I wrote the kids names or initials on the back in one of the corners. You’ll see the use of the tags in the bow section.

The gift in this package would’ve been a dead giveaway if I had wrapped it alone since it’s a video game, so I placed it in a larger box and taped it down. I wrapped the box in regular kraft paper then added thin jute rope, quartering the box off. I cut a section of scrapbook paper out that said, “Open Christmas Morning” and glued it on top of the jute rope. A small red bow was added, and this gift was wrapped and ready to go!

Christmas Shapes on Scrapbook Paper

Next, I used a large, wood Christmas tree shape from Dollar Tree and traced it on a piece of scrapbook paper. I cut it out and topped it with a bow made with 5/8″ red linen ribbon. Aaaaaannnnddd- I’m just noticing that when I re-wrapped this gift after a mishap under the tree, I ended up with half of my son’s name on the front upper corner lol. That’s ok. I don’t think he’ll mind at all! By the way, I used my re-boxing trick with this gift too. It’s a football, and those come with a small box attached to the top and the bottom, but the middle is open revealing the ball that sticks out past the boxes on each end. I placed then entire package inside a larger box and taped it closed. No guessing this present!

Using scrapbook paper to cut Christmas themed shapes is a great way to embellish presents. You can print out shapes from Google, trace them on Christmas themed paper, cut them out and glue them on the front of the gift. Snowflakes, snowmen, ornaments, and reindeer are adorable shapes to use. I also love the look of nativity silhouettes as well. Several shapes can be added for a different look. I have a few more gifts with different shapes that I’ll add pictures of soon.

Christmas Stocking Embellishment

A few years ago I found these burlap stockings at Dollar Tree. They’ve been in my craft stash, and I thought why not add them to the front of my son’s The North Face jacket box. I added a white bow to the cuff and glued it on with hot glue.

You could use mini stockings on smaller gifts. Dollar Tree sells several prints, like buffalo check and snowflakes. They are $1.25 each, and you can get two of the mini ones for the same price. That’s cheaper than most gift bags and wrapping paper! Just purchase regular kraft paper for $1.25 (sold at DT as well) and a stocking and you have an adorable package. The stockings also double as a place adding small items to the package like a card, money, or candy canes.

Greenery & Stem Embellishments on Gift Wrap

There are a plethora of gift wrapping ideas that use faux greenery, stems, and picks. I used lamb’s ear, white glitter stems, pine, and several flocked greenery pieces.

First, I glued two small lamb’s ear leaves together, then added a few red berries to the bottom. That ended up looking a bit like holly. Using one of my kraft-paper-wrapped packages, I wrapped a thick red cord around the box lengthwise then widthwise toward the top. I attached the faux holly to the overlapping red cord with hot glue.

For my next package I cut some small stems off of a white glitter branch and glued them together. I added the to the top of this square gift box behind a white bow. I use white chunky yarn to cover the floral wire that secured the white bow. The way that I wrapped this box allows for a card or money to be tucked into it. It also looks pretty! I love the look of this red metallic wrapping paper paired with the plain kraft paper under my Christmas tree.

I have a few more gift wrapping ideas that use greenery that I will be adding over the next few days. Stay tuned and be sure to follow me on social media and enter your email address in the sidebar to be updated whenever I add new posts, free printables, and link parties!

Vintage Package Ideas

Packages wrapped into quarters with twine, thin rope, ribbon, or string look very cute and neat. It reminds me of packages you’d see in vintage catalogs.

If you have thick ribbon that you’d like to add to a smaller box, you can opt for only wrapping the gift on one side, either lengthwise or widthwise. That’s what I did with this next package. I wrapped the ribbon around the box then tied the ends into a small bow.

Chunky Yarn Gift Wrapping Ideas

Using chunky yarn to wrap the gift in quarters is also a cute way to go. The really thick chunky yarn won’t work for this, just get the Walmart yarn labeled “chenille yarn.” Wrap the gift lengthwise and widthwise several times, weaving the yarn under then over on the next round. Then wrap the yarn around three fingers until you have a thick bundle, slide it off your fingers, then tie a piece around the bottom of the bundle. Cut the yarn apart at the top to create a pompom to glue on the top of the gift.

You can wrap a gift and leave off the pompom, wrap it more than twice on another gift, and use twine in the same way on other gifts. I have a gift that I’m using thick chunky yarn on that I’ll be sharing later today.

Bows

There are so many ways that you can use ribbons and bows to top Christmas gifts. I had white glitter ribbon that was perfect for the red metallic wrapping paper. Tomorrow I’ll be updating this post with a video tutorial for making each one of these bows. I shot a video to add earlier and dang it if somehow thought I hit record or if it just cut off on its own. So, I’ll have to re-shoot it tomorrow. Agghhh!

2.5″ Ribbon

This four loop bow is really easy to make. Just two loops, then angle the ribbon a bit and add two more loops. Then tie it off in the middle and you’re good to go!

Using wide ribbon to make a simple bow changes what would be a simple bow and gives it more of a wow factor. I used the same white glitter ribbon to make a two-loop bow, but instead of using the same ribbon or a thinner one to cover the floral wire, I glued a strip of the red wrapping paper over it. The red looks great against the bright red.

1.5″ Ribbon

The gift with the white glitter stems that I shared earlier was topped with a simple two-loop bow made with 1.5″ ribbon which was left with 2″ tails. To cover its floral wire I used the chunky yarn which reminds me of fluffy white snow. The box is a birthday box from Dollar Tree and holds a tiny Nike sneaker on a keyring attached to a lavender silicone Air Pod case that my husband bought from a cute little Etsy shop. Those boxes at DT come in many sizes and come in so handy to disguise gifts that would otherwise be easily guessable.

Here I used a 1.5″ silver organza ribbon to make a four-loop bow like the one above, but I left the tails off and used the same ribbon to tie off the center instead of using floral wire to secure it.

7/8″ Ribbon

Next I made a simple bow with 7/8″ ribbon and added a bit of it around the width of the gift. I used a box from a phone case and placed a Fortnite gift card inside it. My son will be confused until he opens it because I used my phone case box. Maybe I fake like I ordered the wrong size phone case for him for a while. HA!

I hope that you enjoyed these gift wrapping ideas!

Have a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year! I will be taking Saturday off this week, so I’ll see you back here next Tuesday!

Don’t go yet! There’s more to see!

There’s plenty more to see here on the blog! If you’re looking for something specific, use the search box in the sidebar to look it up. If not, you might enjoy these ideas. Don’t have time to read them all now? That’s ok, just click over to the posts using the pictures and pin them for later. You can also add Life as a LEO Wife to your favorites and check back for new ideas and free printables and SVGs every Wednesday and Saturday, as well as link parties with tons of shared ideas on Sundays and Thursdays!