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Feathers and silk floral pieces from discount stores add a pop of color to any gift. (Courtesy Scotch Brand)
Transform red cocktail napkins into poinsettias, or make your own snowflakes or bows out of paper. These simple and inexpensive accents are sure to get a reaction.
Keep It Natural
Look to nature for inspiration and use pine branches, holly, feathers, grapevine twigs, or pinecones to embellish a package.
To keep it really natural, try using brown paper bags or recycled newspaper to wrap the gift itself.
Design Your Own Patterned Paper
Use various colored Scotch Expressions Tape to add texture to wraps and create your own patterned paper. You can apply these tapes to solid papers or, when in a pinch, use the white side of non-holiday themed paper that you may have left over from birthdays and other celebrations.
The tapes come in six vibrant colors and are also repositionable if you need to adjust your design.
Make Your Own Gift Tags
Did you forget to buy gift tags? No worries! Just print your own. Explore online sites such as Etsy (www.etsy.com) or Ellinee (www.ellinee.com) to find fun patterns and designs that you can print using your home printer.
Or, print a photo of the recipient to use as a nametag—it also doubles as an embellishment.
Use gifts from nature to embellish your wrapping.(Courtesy Scotch Brand)
Tie It Up
Did you run out of ribbon? Or maybe you don’t know how to make one of those impressive bows? Garden twine or baker’s twine is a great tool to use to attach accents or even replace bows.
Discount Store Decorations
From holiday ornaments and foam berries to little toys and figurines, dollar stores have lots of fun, inexpensive items that make great embellishments. If you’re pressed for time, you can always look around the house and see what you can find.
Lia Griffith is a daily DIYer, craft blogger at Ellinee.com/blog, creative director of Elli design studio, and winner of the 2012 Scotch Brand Most Gifted Wrapper Contest.
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