No gift wrap challenge #2: Note paper set

This set of floral sticky note paper already had such a pretty pattern, it almost didn't require gift wrapping at all. Almost, because the center of the cardboard container was printed with a label. But if we go back to the guiding principle that wrapping simply hides the gift from the recipient, then all that was needed was to hide the label.

I chose a piece of washi (Japanese paper) in a pattern and color that echoed that of the note paper, and cut it with deckle-edged scissors to a size that would just hide the label. I didn't want to glue it directly onto the box, so I cut a piece of translucent paper the same height as the small box and glued the washi onto it. I could just slip the sheet—which, happily, could also serve as the gift tag—inside the resealable plastic bag. It looked empty and off-balance after I wrote the greeting and our names, so I added the natural fiber paper seashell and string embellishment to balance everything off.

Patchwork gift bags

If you're like me, you have a gazillion paper shopping bags at home. I now carry my own reusable shopping bags and always turn down store bags, but I think I've accumulated enough through the years to open my own store. Taking a cue from one of my treasured finds, a bayong covered in scrap fabric by What If Handmade, I decided to reuse the shopping bags as gift bags by covering them in scrap gift wrapping paper.


Between the smaller wall calendar bags and these bigger shopping bags, I won't have to buy gift bags for a long, long time.

Sturdy little things

Back in 2010, I wrote that I use old wall calendars as drawer liners. Though not quite card stock, the paper of these calendars is thick and, therefore, very strong; except for a good wiping every now and then, I haven't had to change them since. Which means that I now have two years' worth of calendar paper.

I was at a loss on what to do with them, then I realized that, because their photos and artwork are really pretty, I can make them into small gift bags.


[Just for the record, the ribbon is also reused from old gifts and the gift tag is an old business card of mine with outdated information. The foam sticker is new but is part of the gift of a friend who knows what I like doing in my spare time.]

If you don't know how to make your own gift bags yet, I found instructions on mairuru's blog (text and still photos) and a video on YouTube.

Of course, the other side looks kind of funny.

At least my friends will know that I'm trying to help Mother Earth even in small ways, and that they're a part of it.

Make it pretty

I prefer using liquid hand soap for several reasons. One, there's nothing to get soft and mushy with frequent use. Two, I can dispense just the right amount of soap I need so there's no waste. And three, I don't have to worry about the person before me not rinsing the bar of gunk and stuff that can get stuck on it.

The only problem with liquid soap is the dispenser that they come in. It's such a waste to throw them away when they're empty. Aside from being still perfectly usable (unless it gets broken for some reason), they're usually made of plastic which isn't biodegradable. So I've taken to reusing them.

But first, I try to make them a little prettier. I remove the labels then use scrapbooking plastic and foil stickers to decorate the body all around. Unlike paper stickers, these won't rub off when they get wet, which makes them ideal for the project.

But now, I have a different kind of problem. Unless our stores begin selling liquid soap refills, I'm going to have more dispensers than I know what to do with.

Art marks

As I promised in my previous post, here's an idea for how to recycle the artwork and photographs of smaller desk calendars.


The easiest is to turn them into bookmarks. The handiest width for bookmarks is about two inches so that usually means having to crop the artwork first. In cropping, try to follow the photographer's Rule of Thirds (click the link for a tutorial). Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule; in cropping my 2008 desk calendar (these photos are from the middle of last year), I was limited by the height of the images. This is how I decided to crop two of the paintings; many of the sheets gave me two bookmarks rather than one.


After cutting all of the sheets, I punch a single hole near the top and add a ribbon (or yarn). As much as I can, I try to match the colors in the images, but since I only work with what I have on hand (and many of these ribbons are scraps from the packaging of gifts given to us), it's not always possible. My all-purpose ribbon for those instances is a narrow, gold gauze ribbon.


If you have no need for so many bookmarks, then just give them away to family, friends and colleagues who you know to be avid readers. Even consider giving them to your local library, with instructions to give one each to the next several people who take out books. You'll be making some people happy and you would have done a small part in helping reduce environmental waste.

Inexpensive ornament

More than any other Christmas decoration, I love Christmas trees the best. Especially those that are heavily laden with ornaments. We have a word in Tagalog that describes it perfectly: busog. It really means 'a full stomach,' both the feeling and how it gets distended when you've eaten a lot. Through the years, I've accumulated all sorts of ornaments to try to get our tree as busog as it can get. Aside from ornaments that are hung on branches, I've bought garlands to string around it (though I didn't use them this year) and glittery flowers to put on top of boughs. Thanks to a friend of mine and her Christmas tree, I discovered another ornament perfect for filling in spaces between branches. And it's DIY so it's also very inexpensive. All you need is that wide ribbon with wire at the edges so they can be shaped and those little ornaments on thin wires. Cut and cross the ribbon, wrap the wired ornament, and voilà!


A 10-yard roll of ribbon gave me 16 ornaments. To see how I used it on our tree, click here. Although I made them specifically for the tree, you can also use this simple ribbon trick to accessorize gifts, for Christmas or any other occasion.

Easy match

During the past decade, I've stopped buying gift wrappers made by Hallmark, Fiesta/American Greetings, and other large companies. It's not because I don't like their designs or find them expensive, but because I've been finding some beautiful and unique wrappers from other places. One time, I bought the prettiest apple green and white checkered wrappers with orange and pink flowers from a Chinese restaurant (I have no idea why they were selling them). At one Christmas bazaar, I found laminated kraft paper with bold red swirls. At the warehouse of a wholesaler of gift items, I got several rolls of Picasso-like sketches of flowers.

The only problem with these unique gift wrappers is that they don't come with matching gift tags so I have to make my own. I used to spend a lot of time on my gift tags and cards, but now, I just don't have as much time to spend on them so I've developed a quick and easy version that anyone—even someone who has never done any papercraft—can do:



For the tag on the left, all you need is a piece of card stock (about 2" wide by 3" high), a scrap of the gift wrapper you're using, a pair of fancy-edged scissors and glue. If you have to buy just one pair of scissors, get a deckle edge. It's naturally uneven so even if you can't cut straight, it won't matter at all. All you have to do is cut the edge of the scrap paper, glue it onto the bottom of the card, then trim the excess.

Sometimes, I only use plain tissue paper to wrap a gift (especially awkwardly-shaped ones without boxes), and that's what the card on the right is for. This time, all you need is the fancy-edged scissors and a colored marker. Cut the bottom of the card then color the edge, following its contours. What color to use? I always try to match the color of the ribbon I'll be using.

Then the last step. Since I don't have corner punchers, I just cut the top corners diagonally (to avoid dog ears). To attach the tag to the gift, I use double-sided tape. If I'm using a ribbon, I punch a hole in one corner of the tag and run the ribbon through it before tying.

That's it for the tags themselves. You can now write whatever message you want to. But since it's already in the photo, I might as well describe how I do my lettering too.

First, the colors. For the one using the scrap, I always use black (or white if the card stock is dark) to write "happy birthday." Then I choose a second marker that matches one of the colors on the wrapper for the name of the recipient. For the colored deckle edge, I just use the same marker for the name as I used on the edge. I write my name (or my husband's or both) using the black/white marker again.

As to the lettering itself, basically, I just use my normal block handwriting but give the loops some swirls and flourishes. All lowercase for the greeting and all uppercase—and slightly larger in size—for the recipient's name. I purposely do not try to write in a straight line or make the size of the letters even. Since all my markers have fine tips, I thicken the strokes of the recipient's name and again, I do not try to make them even. This way, even when I've the shakes from too much coffee, I know my lettering will still look good.

Snowflake pattern

Here's the pattern which I used for the glitter glue snowflakes on the Christmas ornaments. It can be used for other projects using other materials. The "ideal" diameter depends on the thickness of the lines. The glitter glue lines were only about 2mm thick and the snowflakes looked best when they were between 1.5" and 2.5" in diameter. Smaller and it tends to blot, bigger and it looks too thin and sad.

Christmas ornaments for education

There's a Christmas fund-raising project going on in our school right now. For every P200 (US$5) donation, you get a Christmas ball that you can have personalized with a name of your choice and it gets hung on a 10-foot Christmas tree in the lobby of the main administration building. The money goes to a fund which provides assistance to currently enrolled students who run into financial problems in the middle of their schooling, like a death in the family, a failed business and the like. Though the project itself won't raise much—definitely not enough for even one semester's tuition—it's really a marketing project to raise awareness about the fund. And the tree's pretty—it's providing a little Christmas cheer in a building that has never had Christmas decorations in the seven years that I've been here.


The staff of the office heading the project personalize the Christmas balls. Of course, when I got mine, I insisted on bringing them home and doing them myself. I named them for three of my nieces (they live in a different country) and I chose balls of the same color—I didn't want anyone complaining about why I chose that color for her! But I did use different colors of glitter glue for the names, hearts and snowflakes (there are snowflakes on the other hemisphere which you can't see from this angle). There's a slight difficulty with the glitter glue, however. When you apply it thickly, it can actually peel off when it's dry. I may have to re-do some letters before the season's over.

So now, my nieces' Christmas ornaments are on the tree and I get to take them home on January 7 when classes resume and the tree goes down. I'll just re-use them if the same project's done next year. That will give me enough time to embellish the ornaments some more.