With all of the expenses this holiday season, I decided to do gift wrapping DIY for most of our Christmas gifts to family and friends. I love printed Christmas wrappers being sold in stores but I felt that I need to rest from those colorful and vibrant gift wrappers and do a little therapy for myself.
I was initially looking for kraft paper but I wasn’t able to find in the NBS branch that I went to. Beautiful ribbons were also part of my original plan but it would also be costly for me this year. So I settled for these materials instead:
- Colorful yarns (Php 13.50/pack) – I didn’t see a red yarn that time in National Bookstore so I settled for green, fuchsia pink and violet.
- Pattern Paper (Php 19.75/pack of 5 sheets) – Its advantages are: smooth, durable, easy to mark and cut and made of imported rib kraft. Dimension per sheet is 33.5 x 33.5.
- Manila Paper (Php 5.75/pack of 2 sheets 35″ x 44″
- Sticker Paper (Php 31.75/pack of 10 sheets)
- Scissors and Scotch tape
I searched for free downloadable Christmas tags in the Internet and printed them on the sticker paper.
Wrap the gift item using the pattern paper or manila paper. The pattern paper is a very thin sheet so be careful when handling it.
You can add more color by using other colors of yarn and sticking the Christmas tags.
Here are the other styles I made…
You can put more folds on the pattern paper/manila paper for a more special look.
Here was the first batch of gifts wrapped for our dear close friends….
Since this is a money-saving post, for the kids’ gifts, I used Toy Kingdom’s gift wrappers since they’re FREE when you purchase item/s from them. We can also save more if we buy small but meaningful gifts to consume only few gift wrappers.
For Christmas eve dessert, we were supposed to buy specialty cakes from Conti’s and some pastries to give to neighbors and some friends. But due to budget constraints and some family members not allowed to eat too sweet desserts (like my mom and my father-in-law), I decided to make mango ref cake instead. Ingredients I used were graham crackers, chilled Nestle all-purpose cream, Carnation evap milk, mangoes and Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
I made smaller versions of this for neighbors and some friends close to our place.
I hope our family and friends were able to appreciate our simply wrapped gifts and not-too-sweet dessert made with love 🙂
Nice Erl! Ganda din mga wrappers mo! Thanks too sa tipid tips. Gusto ko yung mango float for the neighbors most especially…magawa nga next year.
Balak ko nung una pesto sauce in small bottles gagawin ko. But naubusan sa grocery ng basil. Tinamad na ko maghanap sa other groceries kasi ang daming tao hehe. Bka next year yun naman 🙂
Lovely gift wrappings! I was also able to save much this Christmas because I used the old and leftover wrappings from Christmas 2011. I never even got to use the new roll of wrapper that I bought last December. I saved so many wrappers again so it looks like I won’t have to buy any new wrappers next Christmas. Ang sarap magtipid, no? 🙂
I also made mango float (ref cake) last Christmas. I think I’ll try decorating it with chocolate syrup next time – just like what you did!
Hi Connie! Save those ribbons too 🙂 Some of my online friends were even using the brown kraft paper from National Bookstore and Ministop to save money then decorate it.
For kids, try putting M&Ms on top of the mango float to be more appealing to them 🙂
Hi erlaine! I have used the pattern countless times before. Maganda syang tignan especialy with corful ribbons or yarns. Yun na lang, manipis. 🙁 ang neat tignan ng mga gawa mo. 😉
Hi Peachy! Yes, sobrang nipis noh? Kita yung gift hehe. Kaya yung ibang items dinoble ko 🙂 But next time I’d like to use kraft paper na 🙂