Gift Wrapping on a Budget.

I really enjoy making gifts look pretty, especially when you have beautiful paper and ribbon to play with ( I pretty much start hyperventilating every time I enter the ribbon aisle in Hobby Craft). But buying supplies to create these beautiful packages can be expensive and often add a substantial cost to the actual gift itself. This is fine if you can afford it, but if you're on a budget, it's not ideal. Especially since the alternatives are the rubbishy wrapping paper which tears the moment you touch it...and that horrible shiny ribbon which you have to curl with scissors; I have yet to find a method that can make this look nice...(I clearly have not mastered the technique as I'm sure there are plenty of people who do not have this issue!) 

It's my friends birthday today and whilst I was wrapping her presents yesterday I thought I'd share some of these money saving ideas with you all.

So the first thing is wrapping paper. There are so many different ways that you can save money on wrapping paper and one way is to make your own. There are tons of tutorials and pictures online which can give you inspiration and Pinterest is great for things like this! 

Another way, if you are a really stingey like me is to use wallpaper samples from hardware stores. I'd advise not to do this all the time, just incase they catch on to us... but it's a good trick for when you're in a bind! I went to Homebase at the weekend to get a couple of bits and whilst walking to the checkout I walked passed the wallpaper ailse. There are so many different types of wallpaper with beautiful prints and taking wall paper samples is completely free! I took a couple of samples home with me, with the intention of using them for crafts, but they came into their own when I went to go and wrap my friends presents and realised I'd run out of wrapping paper! 

Note: Whoever is opening the present will probably realise pretty much as soon as they start unwrapping that it is wallpaper. It's much thicker than normal paper, but to me this doesn't matter because they still look really beautiful!

Adding ribbon to a present can instantly pimp up a gift and make it that little bit extra special, but as I mentioned earlier, they can be expensive! Especially when you are using it for gift wrapping which is often just be thrown away! So I like to make my own!

Using some cream and pink organza fabric that I had leftover from an old craft project, I made ribbons of different sizes by making small cuts in the fabric and ripping it into strips. By ripping the fabric instead of cutting it, you get a lovely frayed edge which creates a really interested texture against the paper. The great thing about this also, is that you can decide how thick or thin you want the ribbon to be and it looks so darn pretty!

I love finding out little money saving tips like this (especially when it involves ribbon) so if anyone has any other ideas, send them my way!


Z x