Santa's Workshop

The list is crossed off.

The gifts are bought.

Now comes... the wrapping!

Yesterday at lunch time my office looked like Santa's Workshop.  I was frantically trying to make the deadline to ship my East Coast gifts and found myself surrounded by scraps of glitter paper, pieces of yarn, and those annoying spiky balls of excess scotch tape (you know what I mean?)

Wrapping always takes longer than I think.  Truth be told, I adore me some pretty wrapping.  It's truly an art. I'm always trying to find ways to present pretty gifts in the most resourceful of ways.

I was impressed by the simple but lovely display my boss's wife put together for my gift.  She wrapped a cookbook (signed to me by the author!) in a holiday kitchen towel and tied a wooden spoon into the bow.  How practorable.  (That's practical and adorable put together - I have a feeling it won't catch on)

Ignore my perpetual office clutter, por favor

Do you want to avoid the wasteful, expensive mess that traditional wrapping creates?

See below for some ideas!

I'll show you mine after Santa makes his rounds ;)

Use paper already sitting in your printer - printable gift wrap!   This blog has excellent links.

If you're a knitter, this idea is easy peezy.  If not, the clearance box of yarn has loads of options for a buck or two.

Make simple brown paper adorable with a festive cutout.

Take a page out of my boss's wife's book and wrap your gift with another gift (think shirt, scarf, towel...)

That brown paper again!  I should invest in a role... Decorating the wrapping with the receiver's name kills 2 birds with 1 stone - looks nice and nixes gift tags!

How cute.  Jump rope.  For kids & kids at heart.

Happy Gift Giving!