DIY and Crafts

How to use crepe paper to wrap your Christmas presents

Decorate your gifts with as much care as you did in choosing them, then watch as eyes light up on spying these perfect offerings

Crepe paper is vastly underrated. Cheerful and bright, we’ve pushed it to its decorative limit and got the very best out of it by fashioning tassels, fringes and twirls for Christmas packaging. Crepe paper streamers are also brilliant to use to wrap awkward shapes such as that tennis racquet or ukelele you put off doing until Christmas Eve.

Getting started

Start with a colour scheme in mind. As well as using crepe paper in creative ways, bright primary greens, yellows and reds were the backbone of our cohesive wrapping. Metallic crepe paper used sparingly gives a luxe touch but brightly coloured packages under the tree will give an optimistic, playful vibe that adults and children will appreciate.

Streaming success

Instead of buying gift ribbon, raid your sewing or craft basket for laces and trims

Round items and other awkwardly shaped things can be wrapped in crepe paper using a similar technique to bandaging an arm. Use brown paper as a base to make sure the gift can’t be seen, then wrap multiple overlapping layers snugly to fit the shape and you’ll never have nasty, poking out corners again. Finish with rickrack trim as an alternative to ribbon.

Reuse

Collect honeycomb paper packaging throughout the year for wrapping.

How to make a crepe flower 

It’s so easy, but so effective as a decorative flourish

1 cut your crepe

Cut four to eight pieces of paper to the same size – approximately 200mm square.

2 concertina here

Fold all layers of the paper into concertina strips, making sure to press down firmly at each fold so they don’t bounce back.

3 Knot your work

Use a piece of string to tie a knot around the middle. This keeps the concertina flat and acts as a loop for the finished flower if you want to hang later.

4 round out

Cut the ends of the concertina strips into a round shape.

5 go full bloom

Fan the concertina out to make a flat circle, then carefully peel each layer in to meet in the middle.

How to become a Christmas wrap artist 

1 String theory

Twist crepe paper into string, then unfurl the ends.

2 Curl power

Use thin strips of wrapping paper and curl with scissors. No curling ribbon required.

3 What a cracker

Honeycomb brown packaging comes to the rescue again to make a cracker.

Words by: Kate Alexander. Photography by: Babiche Martens.

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