I am Cheap and Economic

Ha ha ha ha ha.

At some point in my life, I figured out how wrap boxes and decorate with ribbon. I became the wrapper of all packages not belonging to me in the house and I grew to hate wrapping items. Mostly because it was CONTINUES and everyone (save my mother) forgot how to wrap anything. My poor father (bless him) finds presents constantly. He buys year round and "hides" them. Only he hides them from himself. I'd have my big wrapping party, make a huge mess, clean it up and four hours later he'd appear with a pile of books.

I won't have that this year, as they are far, far, far away and I have no wrapping paper!


I HAVE NO WRAPPING PAPER?! HOW CAN THAT BE?

Well, I have wrapping paper, I just have no clue where it is. Plus, I have to ship everything. So, I was staring at the paper all the things came to me shipped in and had a brilliant idea, if I say so myself.

MAKE YOUR OWN WRAPPING PAPER!

(It also works as padding for those glass items!)


 It is so simple, its kind of funny, but here is how to make your own wrapping paper:

Find a pile of paper. I'm using the packing paper that came with the presents.

Collect some stamps. I had these from last year. The stamp pads also are left over from last year.  I am making Christmas wrapping paper if you can't tell, but if you have any other sort of stamps, you can make wrapping paper year round!

Flatten the crinkled paper out flat. Try to get it as flat as you can, but it is not that big of a deal, as you're going to wrapping it up around items. Just make sure you can stamp it. And make it look goodish.

And then stamp it in a random pattern. Or not, its up to you. I like random. I do everything randomly.

And BAM! You have a piece of wrapping paper! It is festive, it is cheap (in my case free!) and everyone will think you spent all day on it (except if you're my family, or read this, as to stamp and wait for it to dry takes like maybe 20 minutes.)

After the ink is good and dry, wrap up your presents for shipping (or giving). I am shipping mine, so they are wrapped for shipping rather than being pretty. I might add some stickers or something. Just to make them festive-i-er. I made that word up.

finding spirit

So, my mom introduced me to Straight No Chaser, who had been "making the rounds" in Chicago or something. So I hit the link, as she sent this shortly after my post about finding new Christmas music. I found new Christmas music. However comma, I have yet to drive my husband nuts with it, as he has never been around whilst while I was listening to it. Anyways....

I go through phases where I love the holidays and hate them with a flaming passion. Until I was 16 and had a job, I never understood why ANYONE would not like Christmas. However, once you work retail, you learn to loath the holidays. Longer hours, more angry people throwing checks at you and other things. My first Christmas holiday working, I was learning new skills and being heaped on with all this new stuff while people didn't understand I was in the mists of being "trained." So they did a lot of yelling and throwing things at me. I am a fast learner, but the first day I was stuck up there was the day after Thanksgiving, after having a "quick" lesson on Wednesday. I caught on by the end of the day, but least to say I was frazzled beyond all known belief.

Two Christmases at the same retail store, sucked the life out of me. There wasn't enough time to do my Christmas shopping and wrap things. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, I do not remember when, I became the wrapper in the family. Everyone save my mom gave me EVERYTHING to wrap (except my own gifts, thus I always knew which ones were mine by simply looking at them.) When I did not have a job, this was FUN! I loved turning on my music, singing and wrapping and making my own bows. After I got a job, it was less fun for various reasons. One, I was tired of Christmas by December first and I had this "social" life and it was hard to wrap presents and curl ribbon while holding a stupid phone to my ear and listening to the latest drama of the day. Then I started college.

I was gone till a few days before Christmas now. And they still saved the gifts for me to wrap. I don't know if my family knew this, but college was very hard on me. I was ALWAYS stressed out twenty four hours a day, yet I did not know it. When I came home for breaks, I was usually brain dead and wanted to fall over and die. And I come home to a room full of unwrapped presents. Freshman year there was the added....uh, not sure for the word for it, but my boyfriend of the time (who I was growing tired of) was living in the house and was ALWAYS around. It drove me nuts that I had no space, had to wrap these with him sitting there staring at me, jealous that I was paying attention to boxes and ribbon than him. Sophomore year, he was gone, long gone, but I was about ten pounds lighter due to stress and was about to crack. As the years went on, my wrapping got less complicated to the point where I would just stick pre-made bows on them, as I was over annoyed that no one besides my mom could wrap any more.

My dad, bless him, buys things year around and then "hides them." He hides them from himself (my mom is guilty of this as well). So, as the season drags on, he "finds" his gifts. So I will have a wrapping session and he will later find a slew of things. Sometimes, on the day of he will find presents for my grandparents and go into a tizzy about me wrapping them before they arrive for supper.

Last year, I made and wrapped all the presents. My husband watched TV, played on the internet and later helped pack up the ones to be shipped. This year, I wrapped everything and made bows. Last year I don't think I made bows. However, I am currently under no stress and have a ton of time to wrap things. I did not go as nuts as I did during my hay day wrapping, as I do not have the money to do this (nor my dad's money). I reused last years paper of gold and silver and bought ribbon that can be "reused" over and over and over. I made bows how I learned to make them whilst I interned at Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, the RACVB bow. It was a useful skill in reality. I figure maybe my husbands step mom and my mother will save the bows, but I tried to be eco-friendly. I usually do bags now, but it just didn't seem right to use bags for everything at Christmas time.