Art (and craft, sorta) Time – Homemade Gift Wrap

We had SO much fun with this little art project!  I can’t wait to wrap up Christmas gifts with this very special gift wrap. :) 

We’ve never done this before, but it’s an idea I’ve had for quite a while now.  I have an abundance of white tissue paper, and from time to time I try to think of something to do with all of it.  Well, this was a huge hit, and I think it may just become an annual tradition!

I had quite a variety of materials set up for us, but M was so eager to get started that I wasn’t able to get very good photos.  I’ll try to list all the things we used; you can make this as messy or neat as you want, depending on your supplies.  We went for messy, mainly because of the glitter.

I set out several Christmas-themed stamps – “real” stamps and some that were sponges cut into shapes (you can see the star one in the photo below).  We used red, green, and gold paint with the stamps instead of regular stamp pads (although that would be a great option!), so to keep the stamps from getting “globby” with the paint, I poured the paint directly onto scraps of felt.  I dampened the felt first, although I’m not sure that’s necessary.  The paint soaks nicely into the felt and makes a great stamp pad with clear stamp results.  I added a bit of glitter into the paint, hoping that would satisfy the glitter-obsessed boy.

I also set out a mini paint roller, and some porcupine balls.  We used the porcupine balls like stamps, and the prints looked a bit like snowflakes or stars.

I also set out the following (sorry no good pics!):

• red and green dot painters
• red and green roll-on painters
• red and green markers
• red, green, gold, and silver crayons, bundled together with rubber bands (this was fun!)
• a saucer full of school glue with glitter mixed into it. 
• glitter foam snowflakes and Christmas trees

The school glue dries clear, and I used several different colors of glitter in it.  When you paint it onto tissue paper, you get this result:It’s very shiny and sparkly!  The photo really doesn’t do it justice.

M used every last art supply I had set out and had a ton of fun making gift wrap!   

I joined in and made some myself and we had a wonderful afternoon of fun.  We ran out of room for all the pieces to dry, but thankfully it doesn’t take long for tissue paper to dry, so I simply taped pieces to the cabinets once we ran out of counter space. :)

Eventually I gave in to the request for sprinkling on glitter and after that everything was glitterized. :)

Here’s what we made… again, the photos don’t really do these justice.  If you are lucky enough to receive a gift from us wrapped up in one of these you’ll see just how pretty they really are…

I think we’ll wrap presents with brown craft paper first, so the gift isn’t visible, then finish with a layer of our homemade gift wrap.  I can’t wait to put on some pretty Christmas music and wrap some pretty presents!

Have a beautiful day! :)