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45-degree Wrap

Foil paper is a joy to wrap. It folds so effortlessly. I made four panels using two kinds of holiday paper, one a light gold with words, and the other a darker red with snow flakes: contrast of color, plus contrast of symbols (image vs. alphanumeric). I wrapped under the edges of the paper, creating puffy effects similar to the wrapping bands I often use.

Before applying the panels, I made a small golden square by cutting a piece of foam and gluing on a strip of ribbon. I placed this in the center of the gift box at a 45 degree angle. This is the seed crystal of the wrap.

Next I began hot-gluing on the four panels. Once again, I ignore what happens on the backside; I just get the back wraps flat, however messy.

Then I chose two kinds of ribbon: silver to go on the red, and red to go on the gold. I glued them by their ends. They are positioned one unit (defined by the central square’s widh) away from the central square.

This is not the easiest or quickest wrap. It does allow you maximize favorites scraps you have saved. And the ribbon technique could be used to expand the design even further than I have gone here.

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Cross Band Wrap in Recycled Florist’s Papers

All three papers in this wrap came from the purchase of cut flowers. The yellow and green material is some kind of thin felted fiber.

After wrapping the box with the white and purple vine paper, I began folding the yellow paper over onto itself, making it into a ribbon-like wrapping band. The paper had slices and tears in it from the way the florists cut it to embrace the cut flowers. So I had to use little pieces of transparent tape to stabilize it during folding.

The green paper is actually two fragments joined by tape. The tape join was hidden by sliding the green band under the yellow.

I chose the offset positioning of the bands to add a dash of asymmetry to what is ultimately a very traditional wrap. And then I made a quick drawing of the recipient’s initials; I cut that design out of black paper. I fastened it with rolled tape to the yellow band, positioning it uphill from the bands’  intersection.

This wrap represents the enrollment of typical throw-away materials into an easy interpretation of traditional wrapping.

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Recycled Packaging

I had saved an appealing plastic box that once held a new pen.  It was a sleeve, patterned and textured, which held a two-piece black foam container. Too beautiful to throw away.

There is a burden to saving beautiful packaging. It can consume space. Caution is advised. But the payoff comes when you have just the right thing for a quick wrap.

All I had to do here, after inserting the gift, was to wind some ribbon around the box. In this instance I used a shiny copper mylar ribbon. I wrapped in a purposely irregular fashion. The criss crossing providing a casual contrast to the very polished, dark, industrial materials.

The end result was a handsome small package with a sophisticated feel.

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Ribbon Tease

Some boxes are so beautiful that it is a shame to cover them up. Combine that with a desire to tip your hand on the celebratory contents of the gift, and you have a chance for a very quick but lovely wrap. One piece of red and green ribbon (with gold trim) was all it took for this wrap.

Alternately, if you have a gift that will trump the expectation of good Champagne, you can use these amazing boxes to wrap something entirely different. This worthy yellow brand provides boxes that have a big drawer that slides smoothly open.

(Yes, I’m still reviewing this past Christmas’ wraps.)

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Facebox

When I ran out of tube-shaped boxes to wrap a bunch of gift beers, I placed the last one in a smallish FedEx box and reached for a large piece of brown wrapping paper. This paper was salvaged from an exceptionally large shopping-bag from a franchise bakery’s catering service.

Once I saw that the orange band split the face of the package in half, I decided to run with the idea of a face. I took some scraps from black meat-tray foam and cut them into the pieces you see here.

I reached into my box of plastic bottle/carton caps and took two black caps for the eyes.

I sliced up a white food-take-out box to get the foam for the hair and teeth. The hair piece had an angle already molded into it, that would make it easy to glue on top of the wrap. I simply cut the overall rectangle shape and then sliced out the gaps to make the hair. The teeth were made from the scraps.

I tried a variety of ways of depicting the mouth, including two rows of teeth, and curved top and bottom borders for the teeth. But that greater realistic detail destroyed the iconic power of the four abstract teeth.

I would like to sing the praises of food-packing foam. It is an incredibly easy medium with which to sculpt shapes. It is too flimsy to be enduring in regular art objects; but that is not a problem in the highly-transient forms of wrap art. I cut it with a matte knife. Many cutters will work.

I enjoyed this mask-like design. It was second face wrap I did this season. The faces reach out strongly in a community of wrapped gifts.

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Feathers on Foam

I was giving a present to a young man who likes animals and nature, so I decided to work with the contrast between natural materials and industrial materials.

I glued the gift inside two black foam meat-packing trays. I glued some thick cloth ribbon around the edge where the two trays join.

The fan of woodpecker feathers was actually salvaged from a wrap I executed a number of years ago. It was lying in the bottom of a box a miscellaneous wrapping resources.

An angled strip of gold ribbon added a flashy reference to traditional ribbon. It also has a shiny quality similar to the black foam itself; that commonality helps transform the foam from trash to lovely new material.

Lastly, I reached into my box of aspen scraps left over from sculptural work. I wrote the recipient’s name on a chip and glued it onto the wrap.

The result is a wrap with a richness of materials and texture, almost all of them unexpected in wrapping, but with a very warm effect.

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Aspen Cork Wassail Wrap

We are about to head up into the mountains for a family get-together, and so a little more wrapping was in order. The wassail’s bottle suggested tube wraps.

I took two pieces of fine corrugated cardboard packing material and joined them into one. That completely covered a bottle of fancy beer. I made a bottom for this improvised tube and hot-glued it in place.

I then discovered that a plug of aspen log lying on my floor just happened to fit in the tube. I made some little stop-guides out of carboard and glued them just inside the top of the tube. The aspen “cork” then fit perfectly and did not slide down in and hide its beautiful sides.

I glued some foil paper on top and also glued on a red snow-flake that I had salvaged from a holiday invitation. Next I added the purple ribbon, since the cardboard and the aspen were so closely related in color, if not in texture. The extra ribbon under the round white label completed the wrap.

In went the bottle. I lightly glued the cork in place.

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Scrappy Materialism

Coffee-cup insulators are made of a delightful small-scale corrugated paper. I think of it as the elegant cousin of the corrugated cardboard that so much of our gifts travel about in during their busy lives, before and after wrapping.

This wrap sought to integrate that material into the vocabulary of wrap. I thought some scraps of silver paper constituted a perfect contrast to the flat, plain color and dimensional complexity of the coffee cardboard. I wrapped the ends of the gift with two pieces. I added some solid green, contrasting in darkness and low reflectivity to the silver. Then I added the two bands of cardboard.

Blue gauze ribbon, placed in wrap’s traditional 90-degree style, brings yet another note to our chord of textures. I did not want to cut the ribbon scrap, so I overlapped it with an offset, emphasizing its transparency and gaining two additional visual lines in that plane.

The name tag is an office-supply folder label.

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Elegant Band Wrap on a Beefy Box

Many of my band wraps have been composed loosely, with an emphasis on layered diagonals. I wanted to try out a more strict composition, relying on the traditional 90-degree composition of ribbon wrapping.

I chose to do this on a very well-made dark blue box from a notable fashion company. Because the box was made of thick cardboard, I saw the opportunity to apply my bands only on the lid, allowing the collage to stay intact even as the recipient opened the box.

I made a variety of bands by cutting up magazines into strips and folding their edges. I applied only three, choosing them for their chiaroscuro qualities. After I had glued on the three bands, I realized I should have applied a horizontal band, in the style of ribbon wrapping. I slipped gold ribbon under the three bands and glue it in place. I placed the gift in the box after wrapping.

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Snowy Mountains

Christmas is in two days. I’m going for simple wraps. I wrapped another person’s fed-exed gift in solid green paper. I cut strips of white foam from a food take-out box and sliced them into mountains. Hot glue holds them on the wrap. I added one piece of red ribbon, and a small name tag.