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.

No gift wrap challenge #1: Tees

Last December, I received a gift that included tips on how to live greener in the new year. One of the tips was about doing with less packaging. Since I've been using cloth shopping bags for years already, I thought of it in terms of gift packaging. I already re-purpose shopping bags, old calendars, and outdated office print-outs into gift wrappers. The next challenge for me is, can I do away with gift wrapping?

If you think about it, wrapping simply hides the gift from the recipient and adds the simple pleasure of anticipation. I don't think I can do away with wrapping completely, but I realize that there are some objects that don't need to be wrapped to maintain the element of surprise. I'll document the results here, of course, and this is the first.
  A tee is a tee is a tee. I figure that it's really the design on the T-shirt that's important to hide, so I just folded and tightly rolled the tee, completely hiding the print in front, and tied it with three kinds of ribbons—all reused—in different widths. Since the shirt tag was blank at the back, I used it as the gift tag, just putting a sticker on it before writing the greeting. I tied the tag onto the shirt with the narrowest ribbon.