How to make your own wrapping paper
Can’t find the perfect gift-wrap around town?
Why not create your own? Make gift-giving more personal this year with homemade wrapping paper!
Time:
30 minutes to an hour to make, several hours to dry
Difficulty:
Intermediate (may require some parental supervision)
Materials:
• Paper (depending on the item you’re planning to wrap, can be white or colored, large or small)
• Watercolors or paint (and a shallow dish)
• Newspaper
• Kitchen knife
• Exacto knife
• Pencil
• Paintbrush
• Shapes for stamping (suggestions: a potato, lotus root, button mushrooms, sponges, bottle caps, coins; fingers and small hands are also ready alternatives)
- Spread newspaper on your workspace to prevent a mess and to make cleaning up easier.
- Choose your stamp:
• For lotus root stamps: Slice your lotus root crosswise at one end. Since the root is already an interesting pattern, you can use the entire circular shape directly as a stamp. Alternatively, you can cut the shape in half or even smaller pieces.
• For potato stamps, cut a potato in half with a kitchen knife (parental supervision suggested). Draw a design on the potato with the pencil. Then, using an Exacto knife, carve away the surrounding potato pieces until only the design is raised. - Pour a small amount of paint into a shallow dish.
- Using a paintbrush, spread a layer of paint onto the surface of your stamp or dip the stamp directly into the paint.
- After practicing first on scratch paper, press your stamp firmly down on your paper. You may need to roll the stamp back and forth to get an even print on the paper. Continue stamping until your paper is covered.
- After covering your paper with designs, let dry overnight.
- Wrap your gifts!
