The gift wrapping season

So many postings these days about holiday gift ideas. The big season introduces itself even before the first frost, here in Virginia. But it'a all for the good. Starting early means a better chance of finding the right gift and maybe a little less stress, or from my point of view, a little more time to spend with friends and family. And more time to spend on a family tradition - gift wrapping. This is a family thing that has evolved quite naturally. So that now, when the big day arrives and all the family is gathtered, the fun of seeing these gift wrapping creations is a delight in itself. It certainly is a fun time, admiring all the wrapping creations and getting all the details of where a ribbon was found or where the special paper came from.

Arts on Foot

She paints like she is very comfortable with color and how it's best used - moving back and forth between traditional and something more modern. I especially liked the animal portraits which are a bit edgy in their treatment of space. Seeing animals portrayed in unusual settings casts a new way of treating pet portraits. This is the nice thing about art. Whaterver your tools or subject matter there are always new ways to make an idea look fresh.

Working with gift baskets

Gift baskets fall into the category of unusual shapes. Wrapping shapes, other than boxes, can pose a challenge. There are special considerations for wrapping gift baskets, especially for those professionally wrapped but what about others? What are some options for those who want to create their own or personalize a commercial basket?

Fancy ideas for fun

When wrapping gifts with a theme there are opportunities galore to experiment and work on technique. Wrapping in the circus theme suggest lots of ideas and using cut paper is very appropriate for this. Here’s a suggestion: have one large central figure, a clown, for example, cut from colored craft paper and even snips of magazines. Make it exaggerated in style and brightly colored, with big red nose, blue hair and baggy pants, all that stuff. Then add secondary elements - using the paper doll style cut several small strings of elephants marching trunk to tail. Keep your design simple for easy cutting.

Stamping and stenciling will be very nice for this. You can be real creative and combine techniques. If you were doing circus trains instead of elephants you could stamp the cars with animal shapes. If doing more than one package carry this theme over. The wonderful thing about all this is it takes very little in tools and materials and results are a gift wrapped with a personal expression that says so much.