I just came across this “non-traditional book” in the Potter Style (Random House) line-up — the Holiday Motif Box of Boxes. Basically, it’s 9 self-folding boxes, 12 stickers, 12 wrap bands, and 12 sheets of tissue paper, all done up in a festive holiday motif.

With three size options, you can mix and match bottoms, tops, ribbons, and stickers to create the perfect presentation for the perfect gift.

At $16.95, it may be a smidgen steep for the DIY’er who likes to create and fold her own custom boxes — but such a dandy item for the gift-wrap-impaired male (we won’t mention names) who’d want a special presentation for a tiny hard-to-wrap gift… Like, oh, say, a breathtakingly-expensive handmade charm bracelet…

Small gifts can be hard to wrap up in an attractive way, especially when they have odd shapes. Sure, you could get a little cardboard box to put them in, and then wrap that up — but where’s the fun in that?

Here’s what we’ve started doing in my family — wrapping up those awkward small items to look like strange little vaguely human characters!

It’s become quite a competition, to see who can come up with the funniest face or the most imaginative use of those scraps of wrapping paper and ribbon that were just a bit too good to toss out after the last gift-giving occasion… Thrifty!!

Here, a paper drinks umbrella has been pressed into service as an accessory. These faces are drawn on with marker, but sometimes the giftwrap artist will glue on bits of coloured cellophane for sunglasses or use other “found objects” to add character.

Can you guess what’s inside these two package-people?

My pal Janine stopped by here on her way to work Monday morning, to borrow a piece of sticky tape and a ribbon — someone was retiring and she was in charge of getting the gift that everyone in the office had chipped in to buy. It was a little three-panel picture frame, really cute, but the real prize she wanted to show off was the gorgeous home-made wrapping paper!

She’d just sat down to wrap the gift late on Sunday evening when she realized there wasn’t a scrap of suitable wrapping paper in the whole house. And of course the stores were closed, so she couldn’t just go out and buy some gift wrap.

(Janine is never normally that disorganized, by the way — she said for me to be sure to tell you it was her daughter Carrie who used up all the paper on grad gifts!!)

Photo: dklimke

What to do?

When Tea Stains on Paper are a Good Thing…

The clever woman grabbed a tea bag — living in the country, we all have lots of tea bags in the pantry, it’s tradition! — and made a cup of tea.

She put it in the microwave, actually, and boiled it a little (since she wasn’t going to drink it) to hurry up the brewing process and make the tea good and strong.

Then she took a couple sheets of plain white office paper, the kind you would use for a printer or photocopier, and brushed the tea onto it with a small sponge. No need to try to get an even coat, she says — just splash down some random overlapping strokes of that lovely nostalgic sepia colour that tea staining will give… and let it dry.

Pioneer butterfly stamp: Amazon

Again, Janine hurried things up a little by gently pressing the paper between layers of paper towels, using just a barely warm iron to keep the paper from crinkling or scorching — though, come to think of it, a scorch-mark or two would just add to the old-fashioned look of it all.

When the paper was dry, or almost, she got out her scrapbooking supplies and went to work with a brown inkpad and a butterfly rubber stamp. Butterflies all over the paper, tone-on-tone in lovely subtle browns — nice!

We were thinking that, for a gift-giving occasion in the fall of the year, maybe for a Thanksgiving hostess gift or such, you could stamp on a pattern of leaves…

Anyway, Janine is one of those people who manage to think ahead and keep gift cards on hand, so that part wasn’t a problem. But she was out of ribbon, thanks to Carrie — and I only had some leftover from Christmas, printed ribbon with holly leaves on it. No raffia either, and not even a piece of good fat knitting wool (except a hideous orange, left over from making a clown wig… don’t ask!)

So she went through my junk drawer and found some ordinary brown package string, wrapped it three times around the little parcel, tucked a spring of dried flowers under the knot… and you know what? It looked just great!