Homemade Wrapping Paper

I really think making your own wrapping paper is so much more fun than buying some at the store, and it definitely adds a personal touch to your gift. So far, Lucy’s favorite way to decorate her gift wrap is with paint!

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This past weekend, Lucy had two birthday parties back to back. So it was time to get wrapping! (And luckily, Grandmommy and Grandbuddy were in town so we had some extra hands!) We started off by tearing some paper from her art easel that looked to be about the size we’d need for each gift.

We thought it would be fun to first color the paper with watercolor, (we used Stockmar Watercolor Paint), and after it dried, to stamp some designs on it with sponges.

For the first set of gift wrap, Lucy chose to make blue watercolor. She loved mixing the paints into the water. For the second set of gift wrap, for the birthday party the following day,  she wanted to try to make purple. She mixed some red and blue in some water and came up with a deep violet shade.

After the watercolor was pretty much dry, we got out some BioColor paint and our sponges. (We cut some shapes on our own from plain sponges, and also had some already pre-cut from an old project).On the blue paper, we decided to stamp yellow stars to coincide with the theme of our gift (the book, How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers, and a comet Kiwi Crate.) Lucy loved stamping the stars in a circle~ “Look, Mommy, they’re holding hands!”

The second set we just went all out with different colors and stamp shapes. I think it turned out very cheery and fun! We set them out to let them to dry overnight.

(Last time we made gift wrap, we waited until the day of the party to do the painting, and I ended up having to whip out the hair dryer to get the paint dry in time. Lesson learned!)

The next day when the gift wrap was fully dry, it was finally time to wrap the gifts! I just loved the way they turned out!

After getting everything wrapped, it was time to get Lucy all dressed up in princess attire for the first birthday party of the weekend ~ Come Dressed as a Princess Party. She had fun there will all her princess friends!  And the party the following day ended up being a blast was well~ musical instrument parade and book exchange at the park!

We’re always looking for other fun ideas for homemade gift wrap! We’ve actually got a few more upcoming parties on the calendar. What are some fun and creative ways you’ve wrapped gifts?