Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Make Your Own Wrapping Paper


This is hardly a new idea, but my kids LOVED it.  We recently bought a massive roll of paper...you know like the big rolls they have at school for covering bulletin boards with.  I mostly got it for a project we did in Little Brother's room (that I'm hoping to show you soon), but it also came in really handy for this project. 

You don't have to have the massive paper roll to do this, though.  I think this would look awesome done on newsprint (with or without printing...on top of black and white comics would be cool) too.

Materials:  Tempera (poster) paints, cookie cutters, large lid, paper for decorating.

Put some paint onto a lid.  I used a lid from our food storage cans.  We started out trying to use a plate, but our plates were too curved on the bottom.  Don't skimp on the paint.  You want plenty.

Dip the cookie cutters in the paint.  I used the "non-cutting" side because it was wider and more blunt to give slightly wider lines.  I found that the simpler shaped cookie cutters worked best.  (The elf shape in the pic didn't work so well...but the Christmas tree, stars, candy canes, etc worked great.) 

Stamp it onto your paper.

Let it dry.
And you're done!

The kids LOVED having such a large "canvas" to work on and loved this project.  Firecracker even got creative and used her feet.  I might make some later with Sweet Pea's foot and hand prints to use for baby showers.
After the kids went down for their naps, I had some fun of my own.  I stamped some more wrapping paper of my own.  I thought I took a picture of mine before using it...but I forgot.  Here's what mine looked like after it was used as wrapping paper.  I made some with red candy canes and green Christmas trees, and I made another kind with large and small Christmas trees in two shades of green. 

And since I really don't like the plastic "ribbon" used for wrapping, I decided to take after my Nana a bit and wrap them up with red yard.  My Nana is famous for this...and my yarn isn't as soft as what she uses, but I think it stands out nicely against the mostly white paper. 

You could also do this with sponge painting, but one advantage to the cookie cutters is that it dries pretty quickly since there's not all that much paint transfered.

One thing to be aware of with this is that with the paper I used, you can see through it a touch, so I ended up covering the boxes in newspaper before wrapping...if the box actually said what was inside.  We reuse a lot of old boxes here though, so if it was a reused box, I didn't bother with the double wrapping.
Happy Wrapping!

I'm linking to the Christmas Challenge at Fireflies and Jellybeans.


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16 comments:

  1. Super cute. I especially like the paper you did with the cookie cutters. Also, very brave of you to do this with the younger two. :) I'm still not brave enough to do paint with Olivia.

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  3. Great idea! I just bought some brown wrapping paper with the idea of my son decorating it. This looks like a really fun way to do so! :)

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  4. What a fun idea. I never thought of using cookie cutters like this.

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  5. hi polly, thanks for linking up all your great ideas which are exactly in the right spirit of what i wanted to achieve, i knew i could count on you! the code on my link button was broken, but i just fixed it, could you regrab it? thanks again, polly! cheers, maria

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  6. If my kids were little again I would do this in a heartbeat. What an awesome idea!

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  7. I copied your idea right after you posted it! It worked much better than my initial project. The one thing I do is add splots of glue and sprinkle glitter on to give it a little sparkle.
    Thanks for all the great ideas, I have copied the roads and the hopscotch numbers so far.
    Blessings,
    Rachel

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  8. What great custom wrapping paper (and a great projects for kiddos to help with!). Love it. I featured you today on my favorite things :)

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  9. I love it! Such a fun project for kids! Would love for you to visit me at Sew Chatty and link up to Made with Love Monday! The party will be open until Friday if you want to link up multiple projects. Hope you have a great day! http://sewchatty.blogspot.com

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  10. Thanks for sharing! This is the perfect touch for our handmade gifts!

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  11. And more cuteness from your kids!

    I do hope you stop by at Kids Get Crafty!

    Maggy

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  12. I love the feet go on the paper too. JDaniel would go wild for this idea!

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  13. What a fun, cute way to make wrapping paper! I added your link to the Blog Frog discussion at http://theblogfrog.com/1378313/forum/67466/have-you-found-a-good-method-for-staying-green-while-wrapping-gifts.html and to the Living Montessori Now Facebook page.

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  14. What are the covers that you have over your kids' clothes? I need something like that! Would love to do this project, too!

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    1. Bridget, They're just wearing old T-shirts over their clothes.

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