When "our boys" were young, they thought that wrapping gifts was "stupid!!". "You buy paper, or use the paper from dad's work, buy tape, take the time to wrap it up, which in the end only takes that much longer for us to get to the present. Dumb. And then the paper gets thrown away any ways. Double dumb."
So we went to putting their gifts inside paper grocery bags, and they had to carefully un-staple them so I could use the bags again ;-}.
Over the years, different uncles made comments about how guys didn't care if their presents were wrapped or not, and they really didn't need bows. "But if you are going to bother wrapping them, use the Sunday comics as your paper, so at least we can read them. ;-p".
But the grandma's didn't approve of that idea,and we don't get the paper delivered, so we stuck with wrapping paper, just omitted bows.
Grandma's and aunts always appreciated prettily wrapped presents. How they would ooh and aww over them, while the guys would be rolling their eyes. ;-b! And then the year that we followed our 'in house' tradition with girlfriends, we learned that it was fine to keep giving "our (now grown) boys" gifts in paper bags, but the girls preferred actually wrapped gifts.
And so it is done.
Way back when, my father-in-law provided me with end rolls from the paper mill he worked for. A huge printer machine (can't think of it's proper name / terminology) prints off of these huge rolls of paper. However, it always causes trouble if the machine operator lets it run to the very end of a roll, so they would change the rolls before that point. However, there was still quite a bit of good paper on those rolls! So my father-in-law brought home some, and I used them for all kinds of things. After he retired my husband worked for awhile at a place that also had similar machines, so he continued providing me with paper. Nice!!
The rolls were white paper, and I used them for gift wrap (just add pretty ribbon, or twine for more down home style, or have the kids use stencils to color themed pictures on them, or what ever hit my fancy for that occasion). But I also used them just to let the kids color on (one time in fact, when I was heading up watching a larger group of kids during the adult practices at church, I used duct tape to attach the paper along the cement brick walls of one of the church rooms, used a marker to divide the papered walls into sections, and the kids had a blast being allowed to "draw on the walls" ;-p We then cut the sections apart and sent them home with each child - easy clean up!). And I wrapped it (the paper) over zip-lock bags to store certain meats, etc. in the freezer. And on the uses went.
Now-a-days, I no longer have access to those rolls, so I had to start actually paying for gift wrap. You know me, ever the "frugal to the max" one. So I'd wait till a week after Christmas and buy up rolls of paper when it hit 75% off or more. And I always scanned clearance bins, and if I stop at garage sales, and I followed a tip I saw on some blog (sorry, do not at all remember which one, or I would give the appropritat credit!) and found that rolls of wall paper work great as gift wrap! You can often pick those up at Goodwill, or garage sales, or even in clearance bins.
If I happen to get good deals on seasonal gift wrap, I use it for the appropriate season. But if I don't, no big deal. You can pretty much use lots of different solid colors of paper and just use ribbon if you want them to look seasonal.
And of course, the ribbon too I only pick up when it's very much on sale!!! Anytime I enter a Jo-Ann fabrics, I check their clearance bins!!! As well as when I go to some place such as a Michael's store, or even Big Lot's. And I don't only buy seasonal ribbons. Just cleanace priced ones that I'll be able to use 'sometime'.
Below is a picture of the gifts which were headed to the out of town relatives this now past Christmas. Even though all of the paper and ribbons were a few years old, I think they still made up pretty gifts!
You can sort of see that there is something red in the middle of the white bow on the silver package (I forgot to instruct the person snapping the pictures for me while I hurridly got dressed, that I wanted a closer up shot of that .... sorry!).
A couple of years ago I got inspired (yeah, hang on). I kept spotting these seasonal lapel pins at the missions stores. While I never bought one if it was priced over a dollar, I did nab a whole bunch of them. I then started pinning them onto the middle of the bow for grandma "honey" and a couple of the aunts gifts. The oohs and awws increased greatly!!! The pins added a personalized 'zing' to the gifts - all for super inexpensive prices. Bonus!!! Bingo!!! ;-p
Grandma "honey" then made the ones she'd been given into a display of sorts, on a small bulleton board in her front entry. But then grandpa "honey" took advantage of them. He pulls (different) one(s) off on Sunday's and uses them as tie tacks :-D While Grandma still is unamused about it, people at church have been complimenting her on grandpa using them ;-p!!!
Your 'assignment' (o;-p) is to start looking for papers and ribbons that you too can use to make prettily wrapped presents. And yes, you are most welcome to also use the lapel pin idea ;-} And yes ("Aunt" Billie), soon I will show step by step instructions on how I make my bows. I will share however, that it is the "easy cheat method" (<-- as one woman told me once, and she wasn't being complimentary. Aw well, I still use it and like the end results ;-p).
I 'plan' on linking this posting to:
~ "Make-Do Mondays", hosted by Shari, at 'My Practically Perfect Life' (www.practically-perfect-life.blogspot.com).
~ "Happy Homemaker Monday('s)", hosted by Sandra, at 'Diary of a SAHM' {SAHM = Stay At Home Mom} (http://familycorner.blogspot.com),
~ "Homemaker Mondays ... Yours, Mine & Ours", hosted by Mom2my9 (Jen), at '11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven' (http://rtheyallyours.blogspot.com/).
~ "Make Your Monday('s)", are hosted by Kim, at 'Twice Remembered' (http://twiceremembered.blogspot.com/).
~ "Tightwad Tuesdays with Canada Girl", hosted by Mary, at 'Raising 4 Godly Men' (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/canadagirl).
~ "Make it from Scratch", are held at 'Make it from Scratch ... Where creativity and frugality intersect'. (http://makeitfromscratch.blogspot.com/)
previous blog site: www.xanga.com/thehousethatlovebuilt
current blog site: http://thebzhousethatlovebuilt.blogspot.com
