Handcrafted Christmas: Wrapping in style

The Christmas tree is up, the mulled wine is simmering away on the hob and I have one week of work left until I go home for the season. The tradition I usually loathe is wrapping presents, so this year instead of using a roll of WH Smiths finest and a bunch of ugly tags and trying to get the whole charade over in the quickest time possible, I decided to get a little bit creative for very little money.

I bought a huge roll of simple red and white striped paper from Ikea for about £2 and this will be enough to wrap both mine and Ed's presents this year. I love the way that it's simple enough to add my own touches, but still looks a bit more luxe than the ubiquitous brown paper.

I've seen paper doilies used in quite a few American DIY's over the last few months so decided to crack out my pound shop pack from a couple of weeks ago, bought for a doily emergency just like this. I either cut them in half (for the smaller presents) or kept them whole and stuck them down with a small dab of pritt-stick. I raided my sewing box for oddments of ribbon, chiffon offcuts and gingham fabric to add a final flourish and then secured that down with sellotape.

The tags are made from the same book that I used for my paper bunting, which I just cut into luggage tag shapes and stuck on with tape.

So, was it worth the extra bit of effort and time? Yes. I love how they look and it was surprisingly therapeutic to sit and add whatever I wanted to customise each wrapping. I can't wait to give them all away, but for now they are sat under my tree looking (even if I do say so myself) very pretty indeed!

P.s The lovely Amy at WolfWhistle is one of the entrants of Matalan's Style Project for December, so please go and show your love by commenting on your favourite girl here.