Giftwrapping Gallery

Or, Another Example of Needless Complication

Once upon a time I used to make people gifts. --You know, the spirit of Christmas and let's avoid all that commercialism, and show our love by giving something of ourselves. This is a sweet idea, but since the gifts a) usually took a lot of time b) cost at least twice as much as I would have spent, and, the kicker, c) people often didn't like them, I gave up.

Gift wrapping, on the other hand, strikes me as a way to have my cake and eat it too. I can still purchase, for a reasonable sum, in a reasonable amount of time, with a reasonable expectation that the recipient will like it (or can take it back) a gift, and put the personal touch in the wrapping. A scavenger by nature, I collect the bows, ribbons and even paper during the holidays, supplementing those with 75--90% off bargains (never pay more than 10 cents for a spool of that offray ribbon), and garage sales. Of all my hobbies, this one allows my bargain hunting sensibilities the greatest scope, and I positively delight in putting seemingly useless objects to good purpose--because the wrapping is only for a short while, items that are broken or worn or not of the highest quality do very well.

The largest financial cost is actually space: it's just not practical to wrap on this scale without an area set aside---in my case, an old table, (which doubles as a laundry table) stacked with a dozen or so milk crates my neighbors thoughtfully left on their trash piles after absconding with them from the local party shops, set up in the driest corner of the basement. They lay sideways, with bags of ribbons and bows sorted by color, a box of fabric ribbons, and one of those little storage boxes whose drawers hold the tools---glue gun, scissors, tape, wire cutters (for silk flowers) and so forth within. One also needs to keep an assortment of boxes on hand. Wrapping is enough of a bore without a good firm foundation over which to lay the paper.

Even an extremely elaborately wrapped and decorated gift doesn't usually take more than 45 minutes to do: and let it be said, I don't actually like to wrap presents, which I suppose is one reason it took me so long to come up with this idea. In fact, my wrapping is usually awful---not for me those crisp corners! I like to decorate gifts. Because the covering by its nature is emphermeral, it combines (for me) the idea of something handmade, attractive, and, since it is fleeting, without a cost associated with it---in effect, a gift of time, and a bit of myself. (But 45 minutes is still a good bit of effort. So I take photos, which perhaps undermines the sentiment a little.)

Wedding gift, with a bonus baby gift. Originally posted 25jun07

My poor spouse had to wait nearly to Valentine's Day to get his xmas gift, cuz I wanted to decorate at least one 2006 xmas gift. Originally posted 22feb07.

Blue giftwrap decorated with penguins makes a good choice for a winter birthday. Originally posted 20feb07

Wrapup of the 14 posts comprising 2005 xmas holiday giftwrap series, featuring perhaps 20--25 giftwrap/decors, plus one textile bonus. Originally posted (whew, finally) 8jan07.