I like to dress up the gifts i give. Sometimes its with elaborate ribbon and paper and sometimes its with plain old brown paper and potato stamps dipped in yellow/orange/red paint. This easter i packed up my nephews easter eggs in plain gift bags and made a little egg shaped, monogramed plaque on each bag. Its a really simple way to brighten up a plain bag and if you wanted to recycle the bag, the monogram just peels off. Its only stuck on with UHU glue.

This was whipped up in Illustrator in about 10 mins and took another 15mins to cut each oval out and stick them on. I also like to make little monograms for envelope fronts when the colour of the envelope doesnt match the colour of the wrapping paper.

I made these paper buckles for my christmas gifts. These took a while to cut out because of the shape but it was well worth the effort to see the smiles on everyones faces when they recieved their parcels.

They were threaded onto sheer organza ribbon and teamed with black wrapping paper with a grey flocked floral motif. I know black and white aren’t christmas colours but when i saw the paper i HAD to have it!

Everyone loved the wrapping and opened their gifts v e r y carefully!

And then there was the year i did browns, creams and raffia. They looked great all grouped together under the tree. This photo is a bit old so forgive the quality! The wrapping paper was reversible, one side floral and the other side was stripes, the perfect mix of masculine and feminine- fromIKEA of all places, they do some great reversible paper.

So there you have it, my strange obsession with paper and ribbon, card and tape! I even save pictures of wrapping i like, sad, huh?!