Packaged with love: 12 days of gifts.

Despite the fact that I am currently making a conscious effort to scale back my material possessions, I still love giving gifts. (Fun fact: I used to make a living as a gift wrap designer before I quit and gallivanted off into the woods.) This year rather than buy gifts I'm attempting to make things, and I'm extending my efforts to the packaging as well. I've been brainstorming and have come up with ways to decorate a gift using only what I have at hand. Now granted, I do have a very well-stocked art studio (although not all of it has been squeezed into my current tiny living space) and I do frequent tag sales and flea markets pretty often (hoarding my finds comes in handy at times like these)... but most of these gift wrap ideas involve using nothing fancier than butcher paper or a brown paper grocery bag and things I have scrounged from my grandmother's craft supplies, my own backyard, and left-over scraps from previous projects. (Keep in mind that all of these ideas involve tiny boxes for the sake of both frugality and ease of photographing... but can easily be translated to larger packages!)

For the next twelve days (in addition to regular posting) I'll be sharing different ways to decorate a gift with love, beauty and objects found no farther than the local flea market or your backyard. Consider it a gift from me, to you!

Decorated with: vintage buttons from my grandmother's button box and a scrap of satin ribbon. Ribbon drawstring from a pair of sweatpants and a bit of branch from a bush in my parent's backyard. (Wrapped with bookcloth leftover from binding my senior illustration thesis long, long ago.)