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Good morning (or evening, whenever you choose to read this!) and almost Happy Christmas! I’m not sure how December has flown by so fast, but it’s now just over a week to go, and I have finally achieved something I’ve been meaning to get around to for years – create some stylish and simple Scandinavian-style gift wrapping with all the trimmings. I haven’t done a Christmas craft for a few years, the last I can remember are these diy Christmas cards back in 2016, and I have been eyeing up foliage on presents for years, but to be honest have become a little bored with the ubiquitous plain craft paper, what I’ve been looking for is a craft that will give me a lot of bang for my time – we are all short of time at this time of year, right? And the best thing about this craft, alongside how easy it is, is how cheap it was to create! I think this spatter design paper and trimmings look far more swish than they cost. And. If you are using ink on your wrap, as I did, your paper is still entirely recycle-able, win, win! 

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So with good intentions for Christmas craft in mind, this year I’ve created a really simple way of jazzing up traditional craft paper with ink marks to make it slightly more interesting. I won’t lie, the presents you see wrapped here are various boxes from around the house (though I have wrapped Teds presents in advance with a more child friendly wrap which I feel a little smug about!).

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The thing that was the biggest surprise about this hack, is that it was ridiculously simple. I wondered if I’d go in with ink and paint brush in hand to find that I am really absolutely no competition to Jackson pollock. And whilst I’m obviously not, I’m really pleased with the individual feel of the pattern and it feels a little more lavish than plain craft paper.

What you need:

• Craft paper
• Some artists ink
• A small paint brush

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Method;

This is obviously the kind of craft you will completely free style with. Lay out a few metres of the craft paper on the floor at a time, as it may take a little while to dry. You want a generous amount of ink on your brush (but not so much that it’s dripping) and then flick paint onto the paper with different forces until you feel happy with the design.

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The trimmings;

• A selection of ribbon (I have used green velvet and black and white striped)
• Some wild foliage (I have used pine, eucalyptus and rosemary)
• Floristry wire (for mini wreaths)

For the trimmings I selected items we had around the house, some pine from tree off-cuts, some rosemary from the garden and some eucalyptus. It’s so nice to bring touches of wild nature to presents, I’ve seen these mini wreaths used on napkins a few times, and think they are so pretty. I wondered if they may be fiddly to make so I grabbed two bits of foliage as an experiment, as they are so light, a piece of floristry wire holds a circle in place perfectly and I’m definitely inclined to add these to all gifts for adults this year.

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I’m really pleased with how this little festive craft turned out, I also made a potato stamp Christmas tree version with my son which look really nice, but I don’t have any more boxes to wrap so I will save those for another day! Do you have any traditions for creating unique Christmas wrapping? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

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