Unique Red Christmas Wrapping Ideas (using what you have)

Are you wishing like me that:

Your gifts to stand out a little? Be a bit extra!

Would you like it when your gifts show off your creative personality?

Maybe you have – like me – bought some gifts that need a little extra oomph. Or that would be so much better with a personal touch. But you don’t have much time or resources available.

If any of this sounds familiar then we can shake hands, because I am in the same boot.

So why don’t we just look at all the ways to make the gift wrapping unique and special!

And let’s make that even better by using materials that most of us have already, so no need to go out and buy supplies.

In this article, I would like to help you find a solution to your Christmas gift wrapping dilemma. The gift wrap ideas I am sharing are perfect for Christmas but will work anytime of the year. I’ll explain what I did in a tutorial style although I am sure you can figure it out easily.

So let’s get started…

Easy Christmas Gift Wrapping Ideas in Red and White

Christmas is the perfect time to give a little extra attention to the gift wrapping around our gifts. How neat is it when all the gifts laying under the Christmas tree look like a beautiful collection?

This year I choose a red and white theme for my gift wrapping.

I used plain white paper on most of the packages to make my accent red paper decorations stad out more.

To me it never makes much sense to spend a huge amount of money on the gift wrap (I’d rather give an extra gift or two), but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the gift wrapping to be pretty.

That’s why I am especially pleased that I was able to use all materials that I already had in my home. I raided my craft closet and the kitchen to find what I needed.

Materials to Use in DIY Gift Wrapping (with a creative touch)

To make some unique Christmas gift wrapping you’ll need a few things.

• plain wrapping paper, sandwich bags
• decorative craft paper, paper tags
• ribbons, lace, yarn, twine
• extras like: paper doilies, colorful napkins, muffin wrappers, buttons,

It is also handy to have some basic craft supplies

• sharp scissors
• glue
• circle punches (or other shapes)
• small decorations (like jingle bells or mini ornaments)

I decided to wrap my packages in plain white paper (because I had a whole role). Brown paper or even newspapers would have worked too. Use the cheapest and easiest plain paper as your base and add color with the decorations.

Once I choose my color scheme (based on what I had), I simply looked in my cupboards and cabinets what I had in the color. I found some napkins, paper doiles, and muffin and cupcake wrappers in the kitchen. Come to think of it, a candy cane or two would have been perfect too.

I had one of those dollar store craft paper books in red and white that give me plenty of paper to punch in circles and cut in stripes.

I also dug through my stash of ribbons and found several ribbon scraps in the right color. Some red/white and black baker’s twine was added to my collection.

I am just giving you some ideas here. Be on the look out for pretty packaging, scaps of paper or fabric, or cards that you can turn into decorations.

How To Make Red Christmas Wrapping Ideas

My approach was simply to first wrap the paper in the white base layer. I used plain white craft paper and white tissue paper that I had saved from a previous package. If you don’t have plain paper, see if you can use some previously used gift paper inside out, that would work too.

There was one oddly shaped present that I decided to simply stuff into a white paper sandwich bag.

The larger packages got a second layer of paper doilies to add a bit more contrast to the package. (if you don’t have paper doilies laying around you could cut out larger bits of sheet music, or newspaper to add a little contrast that still sort of blends into the background.

And then it was a matter of playing with my materials to come up with decorations for the gift wrap. The first one took a bit of time. But once I got started the ideas started flowing.

This is such a perfect little craft project to let your inner child loose. You can’t really go wrong with this. I used ‘techniques’ that I learned in Kindergarten, like how to make a flower from a tissue napkin.

This was such fun to do! Coming up with a different one each time, trying to make it ‘fit’ the size of the package. Let’s look at my red and white Christmas gifts in detail.

This one gift has a wrapping that of a big flower made from muffin papers. Oh!, how I love that pop of red on that white package.

To make a muffin wrapper flower you scrunch up several wrappers and stack them. With a dot of glue between the different layers they will stay nicely together.

I prefer a handmade flower like this over a storebought bow any day!

A super easy way to give a personal touch to a package is to use pretty craft paper. The dollar store and similar shops often have these small packs of decorated craft paper in coordinating colors. I often snatch these up for projects like this.

With a circle punch I made a whole bunch of small circles and simply glued those to the package. You can make a pattern (like you’ll see down below) or make it look like they randomly fall onto the package.

Glueing the paper circles will go very quicly with a glue gun, but I had run out of glue sticks so I used a simple glue stick. That worked too.

The red and white baker’s twine is just a simple finishing touch. Alternatively you could use a string of yarn for this.

I made a little flower pom pom from a simple napkin as a topper for this package. I am sure you know how to do this.

You zig zag fold the napkin into a smal stripe, fold that together and tie. And then you carefully seperate all the layers.
Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just pretty and fun!

I had punched so many small circles that I decided to do a bit more with that. I run them under the sewing machine to make them into a garland (simply keep running the machine while pushing new circles underneath.

That gardland was then a super easy decoration for my package. To make the design stand out a bit more I added a black bit of twine to it.

A simple name tag finishes this package off.

A paper sandwich bag like this is great for wrapping oddly shaped gifts.

This ordinary white paper bag became quite festive when I added some big circles and some paper strips.

I used a button and some twine to close the bag and add the gift tag.

When you are using coordinating colors and papers like this it is so easy to get a great look. You can’t go wrong really.

I had one small piece of red wrapping paper left in my stack so I used it to add a little contrast to the bunch. On top a flower made from stacked muffin, cupcake and chocolate wrappers.

Sewing the garland was so easy that I ended up with a lot of it. So I decorated one more package with it. This time I placed the mini circles in a tree shape on the package (they don’t have to be sewn for this just glueing them in a pattern would work too.

The open pattern of the paper doily was just begging for a little weave.

Are you seeing yet how easy and fun it is to make these packages?

Okay one more for the road.

Those napkins I used to make the tissue flower were so gorgeous that I wrapped a smaller package in a napkin by itself.

A simple flower in the same material tops it off.

Homemade Gift Packaging Ideas

I had so much fun coming up with these Christmas gift wrap ideas. Once I had started I couldn’t stop.

I hope I inspired you to create your own personal gift wrap this year, and they you’ll have at least as much fun as I had.

Funny thing by the way….

… when I only have one gift to wrap I usually don’t bother with a lot of hoopla, but when I have to do a bunch my crafting mojo kicks in.

These sure do look good together. I wish I could say the same about my craft room, it looks like a toddler high on coffee ran through there……

So are you done wrapping? And how about the Christmas cards? I still have to start on those. I fear it will be another year with store bought cards for me.

PS You might like last years vintage Christmas gift wrapping ideas too!

I hope you enjoyed my creative gift wrapping ideas. Let me know if you decide to follow my lead and get creative with your gift wrap too!