Creative gift wrap ideas - show your colors

Many of us look forward to the big holidays and many of us have favorites. Along with birthdays, anniversaries and weddings there are plenty of occasions to keep us busy shopping for the perfect gift. It's also a wonderful time to put the personal touch to these events. Yes, gift wraps that come from you - with the personal touch. How much better can it be, an opportunity to have fun, be creative and make a moment even merrier.

There is always a holiday or birthday coming up. What's your usual approach, shop for the perfect gift, then throw it in a gift bag, or wrap it and stick a bow on it? What's the fun in that? I'm going to give you some ideas so that you start creating gifts that turn the whole thing into a fun project. One that definitely makes the gift special and gives you "a feel good feeling." If you've got scissors, tape and glue stick, your half way there. Next we'll go over some tips for making you the wizard of wrap.

Tip 1: One of the best tips I can give you for wrapping with style is to have everything at hand. You want it to look special but it doesn't have to be a major project. The way to do that is to be able to reach for what you need. So have a place for tools, a box for ornaments and a few folders for color scraps and magazine clippings. All these will come in handy when it comes time to put your personal touch to decorating. It doesn't take much room but the more you have the better your choices. So the next time your out shopping, stop by the party store or the dollar store for cute little items that will make fun adornments A trip to the craft store for a few items like rubber stamp of a birthday cake and an alphabet. Be sure to pick up a pack of colored paper and a pair of scissors that cut saw tooth edges.

Tip 2: Paper - There is an unlimited selection to choose from. If you are partial to a certain palette, say greens and blues, stock up when you see a bargain. Solid colors offer a lot of choices for embellishments and the use of contrasting ribbon. The plainer the paper the fancier the decorations. Try your hand at a corsage, putting together tissue paper flowers, construction paper leaves - score them with a wavy line and shape them. Then add lots of curly ribbon and long thread-like pieces of colored paper.

Tip 3: Experiment - Take a little time to play with materials, you may be surprised with what you come up with. Try using scraps to make your own quilt-looking paper. Or measure the top of the box to a make a quilt to fit. Play around with stamping patterns, a great technique with either store-bought or handmade art. You can make up fortune cookie sayings to go with your stampings. These can be stamped, or letters cut from magazines, or your own handwriting. Shake-em paint pens work well for this, be sure to clean your stamps.

Gift wrapping is from the playful side of the arts, like sandcastles, hand decorated cupcakes and gingerbread houses.

Looking to put a special touch on that present? Find out how easy it is to create imaginative gift wrapping ideas with around the house items . For ideas that will spark the imagination go to: http://www.gift-wrapping-ideas.com