Giving and receiving gifts is part of expressing love and appreciation to your loved ones. On every occasion—anniversary, birthday, Christmas, and other special events or milestones—giving gifts is part of the culture. You feel like there is always something missing if you celebrate an event and you come empty-handed.

Most of the time, it is hard to say the words to someone special, and that is when gifts play an important part. By simply giving a gift to your family and friends, regardless of the occasion, you can express your appreciation to them. No need for words, especially if you are the shy type.

However, it is not easy to come up with the right gift to give. And even though you find the perfect one, you might be wondering what you should do to make it look presentable.

To help you out, here are different gift-wrapping ideas you can try, regardless of what gift you happen to find.

1. DIY boxes or wrappers

As much as possible, you want your gift to be as unique and personalized to the person you want it to give to. It is a bit more complicated, though, to look for the right packages to use. Much more if the person you are giving it to is a man.

One of the most common gift items for men is watches. It often comes with a personalized watch box for men, so you may not need to look for ways to pack it if you want. But for those who want to make the gift more personal, the best thing to do is to wrap it yourself.

Choosing DIY gift boxes and wrappers will make your gift more unique and personalized. It is possible not to see other designs on the market that look the same as the one you make unless you look for some inspiration.

With just a quick browse on YouTube, you can see a lot of tutorials on how to make DIY gift wrappers. Some of the common ones only include materials you can easily access at home like old gift wrappers, newspapers, magazines, art materials, and a whole lot more.

Here’s a simple DIY gift idea you can try. All you need to do is wrap the gift as usual, but give it a more personal touch by including a photo. There is nothing more personalized than attaching a photo of you and the recipient of the gift from one of the best memories you had together. All you need to use are a couple of gift wrappers, a ribbon, and a printed photo of you with the person receiving the gift.

Just wrap the gift, tie it with any ribbon you can find, and then paste the photo. Aside from the photo, you can also stick out a note and write out a short but meaningful message to express your thoughts and affection for the person.

Because of this unique idea, it will also make the person receiving your gift feel like you spend a lot of time on the gift preparation. As the famous saying goes, “It’s the thought that counts.” And with this thought, whether you consider your gift simple or expensive, the person receiving it will appreciate it the most.

2. Heart-shaped box

Do you want your gift to look more romantic for you and your special someone’s anniversary or Valentine’s Day? Whatever event you want to celebrate with the love of your life, heart-shaped boxes are the best option you can use to wrap your gift and make it extra romantic and special.

Heart-shaped boxes can make you store different kinds of gift items perfect for couples such as rings, necklace, watch, chocolates or sweet treats, even flower bouquets. Make sure the box will have enough space to fit the gift inside and allows you to come up with a better presentation.

But how can you obtain one? There are heart-shaped boxes you can buy on the market. You can buy a plain box made from craft paper or board. Or you can also buy those who already have designs. Depending on your preference, or if you want to DIY, you can simply buy a plain one and decorate it to match your loved one’s personality or style.

With this creative and romantic idea, sure, you can celebrate an important event with your special someone like no other.

3. Origami wrappers

Are you tired of that plain, old, boring gift-wrapping method where you only need to fold, stick, or cut some parts of the wrapper, and then, voila, you’re done? You may have been in a last-minute gift preparation, so basically, you do not have enough time to personalize the design as much as you want. But did you know that with a few tweaks on how you fold the wrapper, you can still make your gift look more presentable as you like?

You can spice up your gift wrapping method by adding more colors and depth using origami. In case you didn’t know, origami is a Japanese term that means “the art of folding paper.” Gifts vary in size and shape. Therefore, you can explore other ways to fold the gift wrapper to make them look more unique than usual.

If you think that origami will also consume a lot of time, there are origami techniques you can try that only require a few folds or crumples. It is perfect to try whenever you are in a rush, but the recipient will not notice since the gift will still look as presentable as ever.

Also, if it is your first time doing origami, you can choose not to apply it on the entire gift wrapper you will use but only for decorations. For example, you can create a ribbon out of origami paper. Then stick it on the gift for a creative look.

You can check a lot of tutorials on the internet for the specific design you want to achieve. There are so many designs now that you can do with a simple method of folding papers. If the recipient loves animals, you can browse different animal origami. If they love flowers, there are also a variety of options on how you can make a specific flower origami masterpiece. Though this process may require a lot of time to do, it will be worth it, especially for the person receiving it.

4. Recycled materials

Similar to DIY gift wrapping ideas, you are the one in charge of how you want to decorate your gift using recycled materials. You may not notice at first, but there are many materials you can use available at your home that you can re-use.

You may think that it might look cheap to use an old wrapper or a box for that special gift you want to give. But if you unleash that creativity of yours, you can manage to make a unique gift wrapping you can never find anywhere else. And the recipient would not even know you used recycled materials to wrap that gift of yours.


There are lots of ideas you can try and explore. If you do not know where to start, check the old shopping bags that you have kept or the old ribbons you have received from the previous gifts. You can reuse these materials and design them to anything you like to make them look new again with the use of art materials and accessories.

Recycling materials when it comes to gift wrapping will not just help lessen the waste to save the environment. You can also manage to make someone smile with the gift you will give on one of the special days in their life. As you can see, with just a single gift, many people can benefit.

So the next time you shop, keep those shopping bags or paper bags, especially if they look cute or nice. Or if you receive a gift with nice packaging, you can carefully rip them so you can also recycle them and use them as a gift packaging next time. Who knows when you can use these gift wrappers again? But for sure, they will come in handy since every year there is always something important to celebrate with your family and friends.

5. Towel wrappers

When people receive a gift, they often rip and tear the gift wrappers apart because of their excitement. During Christmas, when most people receive gifts more often, you can find a lot of torn gift wrappers on trash cans.

If you want to avoid the recipient of your gift having the same encounter, you can try to wrap your gift with towels instead. It serves two purposes: the gift wrapper and the gift itself. Some gift items, especially those made from glasses, are fragile. A wrapping paper may not be enough to keep them secure from any damage. That is why some people wrap it up with a good-quality towel. They tie and ribbon the towel to cover the gift and make it look more presentable.

The recipient will appreciate gifts wrapped in towels since they can also use them afterward, even though your only intention for the towels is to serve only as wrappers. Unconsciously, you are encouraging the recipient of the gift to recycle and reuse the towels in whatever way it may benefit them.

How to Make Your Gifts Stand Out?

Now that you have better ideas to level up your gift wrapping techniques, here are other tips on how you can experiment further and unleash more of your creativity.

Mix and match

While trying out all the listed gift wrapping ideas above, you may encounter some problems that may get you stuck. One of the possible reasons is lacking the right materials to use. What if you do not have old gift wrappers you can recycle? What if you do not have enough decorations to make that ideal design you have in mind? Or what if you lack the budget to buy more gift wrapping materials to wrap all the gifts you want to give, especially during the holidays?

That is when you should try mixing and matching all the available materials you have, even if you think they do not go well together. Most of the time, people just buy a couple of gift wrappers and use them to wrap all the gifts. Yes, they may look nice and uniform to each other, but it can also create confusion if they all look the same.

If you want to personalize all the gifts you need to distribute, you should gather all the resources you have at home and recycle them. Then, check what else you may need. If you run out of wrapping papers, you can try using two to wrap one gift. In this way, you can save your budget from buying excess materials. You can also manage to make the gifts aligned to the recipient’s style.

Put some add-ons

Aside from the gift itself, you can also add some extra gifts that you think the recipient will also appreciate. It can be candies, keychains, and other accessories. It will work best for kids you want to give gifts to during the Christmas holiday.

Letters or notes also serve as add-ons. The message you want to convey to the recipient also serves as a gift to make them feel loved and appreciated. Even if it is just a simple greeting card, you can insert it inside to give it a personal touch. You can also look for good-looking tags you can attach to the gift.

Avail personalized gift wrapping services

For all the busy peeps out there who do not have enough time to decorate every gift by themselves, you can spend a few more bucks and avail yourself of personalized gift-wrapping services. Yes, you may need to spend more but it may save you some time and effort to pack the gift you want to give to someone special on a special occasion.

These services are convenient, especially during holidays when most people have a lot on their plate and have to deal with other preparations aside from prepping gifts. Aside from this, you can also choose gift items that do not require any wrapping or packaging. The best examples of this are jewelry or other luxury items.

If you purchase jewelry, let’s say for example a watch, it may come with a personalized watch box for men or women. Some of these may include a free service to have the name of the recipient be included on the gift for a personal touch. So even if the packaging is not that unique, the names and other designs you can request to put on it will make it stand out from the rest.

Make it simple

After knowing all these ideas and advice when it comes to gift wrapping, you may stress out yourself and follow everything. But remember that you do not need to overdo or over decorate the gift for the sake of making yours stand out the most.

Some people give gifts to impress, so they make their gifts look as extravagant as possible to gain the recipient’s attention. You do not need to associate yourself with this mindset. What matters most is that you want to express your appreciation to someone without ill intention.

Women hands holding gift box with flowers. Gift present. Close up of hands holding gift box. Present. Birthday gift box. Christmas gift box. Hands holding gift box. Christmas birthday valentine celebration present romantic concept

You can follow all the ideas here or from the tutorials you may have watched on YouTube, but if you cannot manage to achieve the same design, stick to what you can do or use only the available resources you have. Even though you think the gift looks simple since it only has a few decorations, it may still look nice as long as you make it neat. Simplicity can still look more pretty compared to gifts that are over-decorated. The important part is you can still make someone’s day special because of the time, budget, and effort you have spent to wrap the gifts.

Make Your Gifts Extra Special

Gift-giving is part of our culture. Every important event will be more special because of the lovely presents that symbolize love and appreciation for other people. Regardless of the value or the amount of gift you want to give, it is always the thought that counts. But if that is the matter, why bother spending time and effort to make a gift presentation extra special?

The answer to this does not lie in the gift itself, but in the memory that will be left in the recipient’s mind as they celebrate an important day in their life. The visual representation of the gift will surely leave an imprint.

The next time you want to give a gift to someone dear to you, make an extra effort to make it as special as possible. The gift you will give will help the recipient remember how much you love and appreciate them for the rest of their life.

Image Source: BigStockPhoto.com (Licensed)

 

Related Categories: Gifts, Reviews