Hello friends!  I hope you all had a great weekend.  The inside decorations of our home are all finished.  I am ready for the season to start.  I love to celebrate the season with family and friends.  The best way to celebrate the holidays for me!

Today I want to share with you some tips and tricks on wrapping gifts.

Isn’t it fun to receive a present that is wrapped so pretty that you just want to display it instead of opening it?

I enjoy wrapping gifts.  When I plan to wrap my gifts, that’s all I plan to do for that day.  Just like decorating my home, wrapping gifts takes time and some thought.  Now let’s get started.

First tip I want to share with you is my work station for wrapping gifts. Having all my materials close at hand helps to make wrapping gifts easier.  And we are all about making things easier for us.  Below is all the tools I gather for my wrapping station.  And yes I have all these things.  I never know what I might want to put on my gifts!

• variety of wrapping paper
• ribbon, twine, craft ribbon, burlap and bows
• scissors
• tape
• Christmas name tags and washi tape (I would never of thought to use washi tape.  It is actually so cute and easy to use).

Look how cute using washi tape on this package is.

• tinsel ribbon (to tie the bows together)
• Christmas picks and ornaments
• boxes
• gift bags
• assorted tissue paper
• different color ink pens
• container to hold receipts in (most of the time retailers puts your receipts in the bag and you forget about it until you start to wrap)
• trash bin

I buy a lot of different types of wrapping paper.  I don’t have a certain favorite.  I do not like the real thin kind, they tend to rip easily.   I do like to coordinate my paper with the color theme of my trees.  (This is a personal preference).   I also like to match my ribbon with my paper.

You don’t always have to use Christmas paper.  I use brown shipping paper and different color solid paper.  I also use regular polka-dots and chevron paper that are non-seasonal.  Adding an ornament or embellishment to the package will give it the Christmas feel!

I know there are some of you that like to use gift bags.  I use them too, but I like to dress them up by using  pretty tissue paper, tags, ribbon or embellishments!  Have you seen the gift bags that The Dollar Tree has in their store this year?   They are so pretty and they even have the matching tissue paper to use with them.

Before I begin to start wrapping I like to do the following:

• I gather all of my gifts that I need to wrapped.
• I choose the proper box for the items that need to be placed in boxes.  I add white tissue paper to the box.  I like to have enough tissue paper to fill the bottom and cover the top of the item.
• After I have the item in the box I place a posted note on the box with the person’s name and what’s inside.
• If the item is not able to fit in a box due to the shape or size I will place it in a pile to either use a gift bag or just wrap it as it is.

Once I have all the gifts prepped for wrapping,  I set up my work station.  I normally use my breakfast bar in the kitchen to wrap my gifts, it’s the perfect height.  I use to wrap my gifts on the floor, but now I realized that sitting on the floor is not the best place to wrap gifts.  My old body just can’t take sitting on the floor that long.  My husband helps with the paper wrapping.  When we are done wrapping all the gifts he leaves me to the bow decorating.

The reason I love to have a work station is so I have everything right there on hand.

For the rolls of wrapping paper I like to keep them upright so I can grab them easily. I use trash cans or baskets to sit the paper in.

I have a chest of drawers in one of my guest bedrooms that holds most of my ribbon, bags and tissue paper.  I take the drawers out of the chest and place them on TV trays.  I have some ribbon in storage bins and baskets.

Over the years I have accumulated ribbon for wrapping gift and for decorations.  I keep the ribbon each year.  I roll it back on the spool when taking down my decorations.  When it is just my family unwrapping our gifts I save the ribbon, embellishments and boxes.  I use them from year to year.

Another tip that I want to share with you.  Buy a nice heavy desk tape dispenser.  That’s the best purchase I made.  Having a heavy dispenser you don’t have to have both hands to get your piece of tape.  Also buy the satin finish and not the glossy finish tape, worst thing is being able to see the tape on your package.  After taking all the time and effort in wrapping your gift the last thing you want to see is the tape.  Not so pretty!

This is my work station when I am wrapping my gifts.  Normally I only set up my work station once.  The first time I wrap my Christmas gifts is after my Black Friday shopping day.  After that I wrap as I buy the gifts.

If you wait to wrap your gifts at the last minute, you may not have the time or the energy to make your gifts look special.

I use different types of bows on my gifts.   I also use different size ribbon and embellishments to my gifts.  Here are some ways I wrap my packages.

Using a loop bow and attaching a jingle bell to the center.  You can go HERE to see how I make a loop bow.

Using 3 different ribbons on one package and adding a pick to the center of the ribbon.

A poinsettia bow.  You can go HERE to see how I made this bow.

A shoe string bow with an embellishment.

Using two different wrapping paper, shoe string bow and an ornament.

Using a ornament for the bow.

A gift bag.  I use coordinated tissue paper, added a Christmas pick and note tag.

Here are my packages all wrapped and decorated ready to be placed under the tree.

Here are the gifts under the tree.

I still have many more gifts to buy and wrap.  I am caught up with my wrapping for now.

Have fun with your packages.  You can add any type of embellishments to the ribbon.  Make it extra nice for that person you are giving it to.  Giving a beautiful wrapped gift will make them feel extra special.

Do you have any great tips or tricks that you would like to share?  I would love to know how you wrap your gifts.

Thank you for stopping by.  I truly enjoyed showing you my tips and tricks on how I wrap my presents.  I hope I gave you some good tips on wrapping your presents this year.

Please come back and tell a friend about my blog.  I would love to share my tips with them too.

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Stay strong and stay blessed!

Terrie