Gift wrapping and gift tags

When it comes to wrapping my gifts it's always the same. I realize way too late that I don't have any nice wrapping paper. :-( I do care alot for the wrappin of presents. Somehow I think it's part of the present ... and I myself like to get a very nicely wrapped present. So foregoing the wrapping is just not an option.
When I realized that I didn't have any christmas themed or plain coloured wrapping paper (just flowers and stuff) I stumbled across some postings in the blog "Little dishy". She writes about how to make gift wrap from glossy magazines and about how to make gift bags. I was saved! I had a free subscription for a fashion magazine and since I don't care too much about the magazines but do like some of the pictures ... that was a perfect idea. So I started cutting out pages! What I realized while wrapping presents - this idea does not work too well for kids! There are no pictures in glossy magazines that kids would care for ... and I had a few presents to wrap for kids. In the end I used an old clothing catalogue with childrens' pictures to make a gift bag and some brown paper (with many embellishments) to wrap the rest. Another thing I learned while doing this! You really should only use the very thick glossy pages for gift bags! I made a really cute one - but out of the regular magazine pages. It is very thin and if you put a gift in there that is not VERY lightweight it's about to rip apart.
But the thinner pages work fine as regular wrapping paper. And I think this year my husband really liked how his presents were wrapped. ;-) (I guess that usually he doesn't care too much about the wrapping.)


In the last years I didn't really bother using gift tags. In a family of three including a child that is three (who isn't giving presents yet) you just know anyway which presents are for you. Either you know it - or it's for you. :-)
But this year I
While searching the internet I found quite a few really nice gift tags you can print for free. But my absolute favourite are these:

Martha Stewart
Angry chicken

As you might notice - I am rather going for the less traditional stuff when it comes to gift wrapping and gift tags ... ;-)