Gift wrapping a la Pinterest

I’ve written about my secret tips on Christmas wrapping before, such as buying plain, shiny paper that you can use all year round and adding loads of ribbon to everything so people are distracted from the badly wrapped bits.



This year, I decided to go full-on Pinterest and wrap my gifts in brown paper with stripy string. It’s ridiculously trendy at the moment – stylish Instagram queens like Liv and Carrie are all over this look – and I can see why. It’s simple but festive, trendy but traditional. I always hear Julie Andrews singing ‘brown paper packages, tied up with string…’ as I wrap my gifts, because, um, that’s what they are.



The other reason I went this route though, was cost. These materials are so much cheaper than any other giftwrap (and brown paper’s always a useful thing to have in the house for posting ebay sales, covering textbooks, etc). It may be a little late for this but if you're a last-minuter, here's where I got my wrapping material:






10 metres of red & white string = £2.49 (free shipping)

I wasn’t sure 10m would go that far, so I bought 20m, and it seems plenty. I think you can get it even cheaper – it’s basically butcher’s string, so available in lots of places in bulk.



25 metres of brown paper = £3.49 (plus £1 shipping)

There’s tons and tons here. It comes in a neat little roll and is nice and thick which is great - I thought for that cost it might be the paper thin stuff.



50 x red luggage tags = £1.49 (plus 99p shipping)

I always buy these for Christmas as they last and last, and 50 tags should see me through pretty much everyone. They’re nice and chunky, easy to write on and – most importantly – match everything else.






If you want, you can add other funky things (I did consider buying real, fabric ribbon instead) but I like the simplicity of this look – especially because it’s so purse friendly!