How are you doing with the present wrapping? I have a ribbon tying tip for you! It is quite simple, but does take a little bit of practice.
First you need to wrap the paper ribbon (this won’t work with fabric ribbon) around the present and then tie a simple knot so everything stays put.
Then, holding the edge of a pair of scissors against the the wrong side of the ribbon, and holding the ribbon between the scissors and your thumb, slide the scissors and thumb all the way up the ribbon. This will make the ribbon curl nicely. It can be a bit tricky to get the tension right, but you’ll get it if you practice!
And then you can tie a nice curly bow. Before you tie the bow you can also slide the to/from tag onto the curly ribbon so it will be tied onto it when you tie the bow.
Oh and another tip! It can be tricky to determine exactly how much ribbon you need, so I have a rule of thumb: I always cut a length of ribbon that is approximately 7 times the width of the largest measurement of the present I’m wrapping. That should leave enough ribbon to wrap around all six sides of the parcel (if it’s a box type present) and leave some for tying the bow. But obviously, it depends on the parcel – if it’s flat and skinny you won’t need as much and if it’s huge in all three dimensions I will likely need extra.
Here’s our happy little present pile. There was a time when I would make a lot of effort with the gift wrapping but not everyone appreciates the work that goes into it, so now I only make that special effort for people who will really appreciate it. In a way I kinda like that all the papers are different and the ribbons don’t match and stuff. And we recycle Christmas cards for gift tags the following year, so they wouldn’t match anything anyway.
It looks pretty in magazines and blogs with all the design-y matchy-matchy gift wrap but life is just too short for that when most recipients are just going to rip the wrapping open in a hurry. ;-)