gift wrap lesson learned

As I was flipping through one of my Christmas issue magazines for decorating or gift ideas, I saw a gift wrap idea that’s an oldie but a goodie. Now for the life of me I can’t remember what magazine it was in. Luckily the same idea can be found on Martha’s site (Christmas-Tree Silhouette). I always referred to this in my head as the peek-a-boo wrapping technique.

photo credit: www.marthastewart.com

I was surprised to see this idea in the magazine because this is something I did about 10 years ago. I was a single girl living in the city, with no husband and no kids of my own to spoil, I prided myself on buying the best gifts for my nephews. One year I even got one of my nephews a kitten (with my sister’s blessing). What a cool Aunt I was.

Anyways, one year I couldn’t stop at just buying the cool gifts, they had to be wrapped cool too. After seeking the peek-a-boo technique somewhere, I knew this was going to be my statement for the year. I imagined how impressed everyone would be with my nicely wrapped gifts. I was gonna be so cool.

Here’s what I did. I wrapped the gift as normal. Then I took a sheet of colored tissue paper. I folded it in half lengthwise and drew the silhouette of a tree (just like on Martha’s site). I then used an exacto knife to cut just one side of the tree’s outline. I then wrapped the present again with the tissue paper making sure the tree was on the front side of the package. Once wrapped I simply folded the cut side over to reveal the pattern of the other paper underneath. I think I even added glitter ornaments to the tree. I spent so much time on these beautifully packages. I was so proud.

Here my friends is the fatal flaw in my plan. I failed to think about who would be receiving these beautiful works of art. Yep that’s right my 5, 7, 9 and 10 year old nephews couldn’t care less about my special wrapping technique. They simply tore into the gifts just like everyone else’s simply, but smartly wrapped gifts. All that time I spent wrapping was never even noticed by those snot nosed boys (ok, they weren’t snot nosed, they were just kids). After that I just stuck to buying cool gifts and forgot about the wrapping.

Now fast forward 10 years and I see this idea again. It’s not a bad idea; in fact it’s still a great idea. Plus it’s really easy to do, give it a try, just always remember to keep your recipient in mind!