Thursday, December 17, 2009

Christmas Wrapping

Am I the only one who obsesses about gift wrap? I'm an aesthete in all senses and ever since I started doing Christmases as an adult, I've picked a color scheme for my wrapping paper and gone with it. My mom kinda objected to the idea of gifts not wrapped in Christmas paper, but let me lay out my reasoning (which I think you'll agree with):
  • Wrapping all my gifts in the same color scheme immediately identifies who the gifts are from and also achieves a design aesthetic I find pleasing.
  • I only have to buy about 3 to 4 rolls of paper and coordinating ribbon each year and by not buying Christmas paper, I can use it year-round.
  • Every year's color scheme usually recycles some colors from the previous year (with some exceptions), which means I am truly using the paper until I run out.
  • If you're horrible at wrapping (like I am), you can make up for it by having a visually arresting color scheme and awesome ribbon.
Christmas 2006: I picked a super "I'm a recent college grad who is so excited to be out in the real world" color scheme of hot pink, black and white. This might still be my favorite. I was able to use the paper throughout the year; I even used some of the striped paper for decor projects.

Christmas 07: I was inspired by a magazine cover to use gold and pink, with some kraft paper. The kraft paper turned out to be a great investment, because you can use it for anything. I also used really great faux bois ribbon (the woodgrain velvet ribbon you can see in the background).

Christmas 08: Where my love for teal + red was born. These are my wedding colors now, but I first used them for my gifts last year. I had a LOT of red and white paper left over, so this year is a bit of a repeat.

Christmas 09: This year I'm doing red and purple. I had a LOT of red left over and not much budget for awesome ribbons, so unfortunately the gifts aren't quite as pretty this year. But I tried to spice them up by making tissue paper poms to go on top of gifts, as seen above and below.

It's a pretty girly combo, I have to admit. I'm already thinking about next year; I was thinking blue and yellow, but that could look really IKEA really fast.

Any color combo suggestions for next year? Do you guys do anything special to make wrapping more fun?

1 comment:

ginamom said...

oh yeah, i had been meaning to ask what the theme was this year... even though i'm not mailing yours... your gifts look lovely... hey maybe next year should be taupe and black... taupe goes with everything