Better late than never

Normally, I'm a mad present wrapper. I believe that presentation is as important as the present itself. That doesn't mean I opt for professional wrapping - in all honesty, I think professional wrapping lacks style; it's more a militaristic regiment of wrapper, bow, tag. I like gift towers connected with ribbon, brown paper packages tied up with string, and newspaper.

While I don't believe in spending too much on wrapping paper, I like being prepared. A lot of good supplies can be acquired at Ikea. Some of the tissue paper is left over from Victoria's Secret and Anthropologie. I save wrapping paper from Christmas and birthdays. I have some nice brown wrapping paper for my brown paper package moments. Generally, since I have a prepped surplus that's replenished from time to time, I never really have to buy much in terms of wrapper. I generally always get colored tissue paper - you never know when you'll need lime green.

I was rather pressed for cash this Christmas. I think the bigger thing on block was my creativity. While checking out with my sister the lady in front of us let us go ahead of her since we only had one item. I observed a bar of soap and questioned her about it since it was cool looking and among other things, she told me that the bar was only $2.50 - I thought that was wicked cool and wanted to make it a soap Christmas. Since I wasn't done with my school projects until late, I didn't have time to dwell on the presents I would give to people and decided to go back to the grocery store (mind you, specialty grocery store) for the soap. The soap is Pre de Provence - Country soap. The thing I found odd was that a packaged gift set of 5 of these soaps were on sale for $18. With each soap at ~$2.50, that $12.50 for the soap and an extra $5.50 for an uninteresting box and a plain green ribbon. To that I said "screw this" and I bought 6 soaps, 3 different kinds, the better smelling of the 5.

Usually at the grocery store, they have narrow brown paper bags for wine; I picked up a couple of these. In the words immortalized by Julie Andrews, "brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things.." oh yeah. Using the paper bags from the grocery stores is a shorter version for the packaging process. Being hardcore with those lyrics, I don't use tape with my brown paper packages; everything is held together by the string and using a brown paper bag makes this considerably easier.
All you have to do is push the soap to the bottom of the bag, maintain the shape, fold over the bag continually and the excess lies flat. You end up with a boxy shape like what is shown in the picture and you hold that shape down with sting tied in a crossover fashion.

If you want the prototypical brown paper package, you just have to switch out the brown paper bag with brown paper. The trickier part with this is tying it. The general approach is to hold all the soaps aligned in the desired shape. Wrap the soaps as you would a boxy present, just don't use any tape. When taking in the extra wrapping paper off the sides, make sure to fold it so that it is more triangular so that it will be easier for the string to hold the package together. It ends up looking like the picture to the left. A bonus with this is that sometimes, the pull of the string opens everything. It has some old fashioned, pre-tape charm to it.

I tend to get creative under time pressure and with low funds. I still think that there should be some cohesiveness to my presents. As a small present for my cousin, I got the following: a book on cocktails with some nice pictures - I've seen it previously selling at Anthropologie for $15.95, but I found it at a book outlet for $3.99 - liquor miniatures that are about 50ml each and also about $3 each - and (individually) the most expensive item, a designer chocolate bar by Voges Haut Chocolate at $7. I think it all works well and is essentially a feel good present. I know I would like this for myself and I recently discovered that sometimes, getting presents for people that you would want yourself has some merit.

It turns out that my older sisters like the things I buy for myself oppose to the things that I think they'll like. My sister says "when you buy me things, think of yourself - of course that results in me buying things for myself which they ask to borrow. I suppose I shouldn't assume that our styles are so different. It might be a reflection on the thought that if I were to get them presents that I'd like, I put as much thought, care, and interest into their presents as I do for myself. Not bad.

Happy Holidays everyone!