I have always loved wrapping presents.
One day, I will tell you about the meltdown I had when I realized I couldn’t wrap gifts as well as my mom could. I was three-years-old…yes, three…and the meltdown was so epic, I remember it today…ha.
My kids love to wrap gifts for people, too (although they are usually only good for three or four before their attention wanes). This year, I thought it would be fun to make our own wrapping paper for the grandparents. This DIY Christmas gift wrap is inexpensive, won’t take long to make, and the kids will love you for it – what kid doesn’t love a good, messy paint project, right?
This post is sponsored by Ora. All opinions are my own.
Here’s what you need to make your own DIY Christmas Gift Wrap:
- Kraft paper (you can buy this pretty much anywhere…and it was less than $5 for a giant roll that I will probably still be using when the kids go to college)
- Paint (green and the color of your choice for the ornaments…we chose red and gold)
- Circular paint sponge (you can get these inexpensively at any craft store)
- Ora paper towels for an easy clean up!
Start by rolling out the paper, curly side down so it will stay mostly flat. We used two green paints, and alternated on each row. Paint your child’s hand and have them keep their fingers tightly together and stamp their palm onto the paper.
Your “trees” will look more tree-like if they can be sure to smoosh their palm down on the paper.
By the time you’re done with your trees (we didn’t make a ton of gift wrap…just enough for a couple of gifts), the first ones will have dried enough to start painting the ornaments.
Use one of your circular sponges to dab in the paint, wiping the excess off. Let your child dot the trees with the ornaments.
I had to let my secret inner control freak go on this one…she wanted to control ALL THE DOTS, but I realized that was completely beside the point and managed to let Claire make all the dot-placement decisions. And we all survived.
Let the paper dry completely, then cut and wrap!
This is kind of messy, because KIDS and PAINT.
We had Ora paper towels with us for cleaning up the messes as we went along. This is the first time I’ve ever used Ora paper towels, and I would like to know, why hasn’t anyone ever thought of this before? The design is GENIUS. These paper towels are all round, and they’re stacked…not rolled around a tube. So you can easily grab one off the top with one hand, which I had no idea was missing from my life until I used these.
Honestly, we buy paper towels but use them minimally because I hate feeling like I’m wasting them. Ora paper towels have twice as many towels as a normal roll and 20% less packaging. They also take up less space than a typical roll of paper towels, which means they take up less room on the store shelves and in the trucks, making them more eco-friendly than traditional rolls, too.
You can buy Ora paper towels in Targets across Texas, or online at Target.com. You can learn more about Ora here.
The grandparents will officially be getting the cutest-wrapped gifts of the year, and the kids LOVE that they had a part in this. I think this project turned out adorable, and we’ll likely make more.
Also? No one cried while wrapping these gifts – including me. 😉
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What a fun idea! I love how you get your kids involved in making specialized presents. Thanks for sharing!
They loved helping!