Saving on Christmas: Wrapping Paper

I haven’t been writing much this week, since everyone in our house has been sick, but I have still been getting ready for Christmas.

I am a gift wrapping nerd.  I like perfect corners and fancy ribbons.  Every year I savour the task by wrapping everything at one sitting, drinking egg nog and listening to Christmas music.

Just a quick post today on one of the easy ways I simplified wrapping presents.  Years ago, I was watching this show where an organizer said that everyone has these drawers and boxes full of things to wrap presents.  Paper, ribbons, bows, bags….it all starts to take up a lot of space.  Plus, they charge a ridiculous amount of money for that thin paper!  His tip is one that I have followed since: wrap everything in one color paper.

You can buy “poster” rolls of paper, either white or brown, in craft areas or  at a business supply company.  They are dirt cheap.  Wrap all your presents in white paper and keep a couple different colors of ribbon around for different occasions.  Silver is pretty for weddings, anniversaries or Christmas.  Red and Green for Christmas, bright colors for birthdays, spring colors for Easter etc etc etc.

I have been doing this for a few years, and generally pick a theme and wrap most presents the same.  White paper with red ribbons looks like candy canes.  One year, I wrapped everything in the brown paper and used gold and silver pine cones as my “bows”.  It looked very old fashioned and pretty.

Then, as a bonus, when you are ready to ship your items, you have brown or white paper to wrap the parcel for shipping, and you still only have to have one roll of paper in the house!