Bags and tissue paper? Boxes covered in wrapping paper? How about making the opening of the gift a part of the gift…an experience!
My sister’s birthday was last week. I had accumulated a gift with many parts – a hodgepodge of things I knew she’d like (curating mishmash gifts is a habit I picked up from my grandma). Among the collection were a handful of red Starburst candies, votive candles, and a rubber sunflower stamp…
I got to thinking and decided to put each component of her gift into a small box of its own, but then make one of the six sides out of tissue paper so she had to punch through it to retrieve her present. There were eight total. I used different colors of tissue paper, but I only had 7 different so I did two in yellow since it is her favorite color colors (in hindsight I could have used white as the eighth color).
I started by folding in the flaps of the small boxes inside. Then I filled each box with a treasure.
I cut a piece of the tissue paper to cover the box openings (they varied) – cutting the paper to have about an inch overhang on each side.
This package of colored tissue paper was purchased at Dollar Tree, was mad in the USA (which is important to me), and is not waxed so it is recyclable (and compostable).
The next step was to put a thin line of glue along the rim of the boxes’ opening and lay the cut piece of tissue paper over it.
Then starting on any side you choose, spread glue on the side using a paintbrush. Lay the overhanging tissue down on the glue, then paint over it with more glue.
Work your way around the box completing this process on each side. (Side note: if you fold one of the corners of the overhanging tissue down onto glue, then paint over it with glue before laying the rest of the tissue down on that side it has less wrinkles.)
When the glue dries the wet looking dark spots disappear. 😉
After they have all dried, stick them all together in whatever design you like.
(It would be cool if your boxes fit into a larger box. That didn’t work for me this time.)
(This whole concept was kind of inspired by a sculpture I made in high school.)
The final touch I added was a “Happy Birthday” wish. For this I simply printed a document I had typed up, then folded it in quarters (“hamburger style”) then overlapped two of the quarters to make a triangle, and glued that to the top of the largest box.
When I presented this present to my sister she kind of gave me a “Are you crazy?” look, but then after I explained it she seemed to have fun retrieving her treasures.
This wrapping idea would be great for kids or age themed gifts (i.e. a Matchbox car collection, a stable of little ponies, 21 things for 21, 30 things for 30…) with little gifts.
If you give this a try please tag me in a post of it on Instagram, I’d love to see how it turns out!
Yes, this was an interesting way to open gifts, but it sure was fun! Thank you!