Ruffle & Driftwood Christmas Wrap

I did not buy any wrapping paper or bows this year.  Instead I embellished grocery bags, brown paper lunch bags, and used up the leftover driftwood paper from the Punch Advent Calendar.  To give the driftwood paper a little decorative edge, I made paper ruffles in a yummy chartreuse color.

To create the pleated ruffle, I started with a piece of chartreuse wrapping paper that measured 12 x 24 inches.  This paper is about the thickness of normal printing paper.  It is not a flimsy wrapping paper.

I used the scoring blade on my paper cutter to score the paper at 1/2″ and 1″ alternating intervals.  You score the paper at 1/2″, 1.5″, 2″, 3″, 3.5″, 4.5″ and so on.  The space between scores will alternate between 1/2″ and 1″ spacing.  Then you simply fold the paper in alternate directions to create the pleats.  I cut my pleated paper in 2 inch strips.  Then to hold the pleats, I used my sewing machine to stitch right down the center of each strip.  For some of the larger packages, I joined two strips together in one longer strip as I stitched them.  I taped the paper ruffles around the packages.  I finished them off with some white twine and a small tag to write the recipients name.

On a few of the other driftwood packages shown, I used extra card stock leaves from the DIY lacing cards as gift tags.  The white leaves looked great against the driftwood paper.

I also used monograms on a few of the gifts.  The brown paper monograms were leftover from the other monogramed gift wrap I created with brown paper bags and scrapbook paper.  I saved the cutouts to use as tags on other presents.

I am very pleased with how the whole collection of gifts turned out…no commercial gift wrap or bows!  I will admit sometimes I spend more time on the gift wrap then I do on the gift, but I think presentation is important :)

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