Tis the season so feel skint. I wanted to show how you can wrap gifts using little money and a lot of creativity. This personal touch will make giving those gifts just that little bit more special.

1. Old newspapers and tired old books that are heading for the bin.  These have a great vintage feel, to bring them to life use a striped twine (I love the grey and white twine used, a red and white twine would equally look as good).

2. Brown paper, I must have so much brown paper laying around I might aswell use it! Yeah it might be all crinkled and creased but so am I.

3. Using wallpaper to wrap gifts makes for a luxurious finish it’s thicker than the average wrapping paper which makes it look expensive!

4. Brown luggage tags, you can get these really cheap. Decorate them with crocheted circles made with twine, brass buttons or any other finds from craft shops.

5. FIMO, remember FIMO!!!! I used to play with this as a child, making different shapes with this putty like material, popping it into the oven, then,magic, hard as a rock. Well I’ve rediscovered it and I made some lovely love hearts with snowflake imprints. Cute and Christmassy!

 

 

              

The next style I’ve been playing with is hand-sewing paper bags. If you’re like me and for some reason save all your paper bags, then this is a useful way to use them up.

Think of the pattern you would like to sew, then pierce the side of the bag you want to decorate with that pattern. Remember space the piercings by 5 – 10mm to avoid the paper tearing. Once you have the pattern pierced, carefully sew the thread, I find a running stitch looks good. Here’s some examples of my sewn up bags.