What is a Cool Way to Wrap a Kid's Birthday Gift?

Wrap kids gifts with the comic section of the newspaper.

When you give a child a gift there are many printed wrapping papers and gift bags from which to choose. However, if you want to step outside the box, there are other creative and unique ways to wrap your children's gifts. Wrapping gifts without store-bought materials will save money, as you use things you already have around your home.

Newspaper

Newspaper is one of the more inexpensive materials that is used for gift wrapping. If you get the newspaper from the child's birthday use their birthday horoscope to make a card or tag for the gift. Cut the horoscope out and glue it to an index card. Write your birthday wishes on the back of the index card.

Decorated Paper

Wrapping a child's gift in paper you decorated personally is both inexpensive and fun. Simply get a roll of white craft paper, roll out the length of paper you will need for wrapping and use craft supplies to decorate it. Decorate with stamps, stencils, stickers, markers and crayons. Get old magazines and cut and paste images on the paper. Cut out popular cartoon characters, or cut letters out to spell the child's name. Cut the letters out to make a tag or card and glue them on an index card, or construction paper. The possibilities are limited only to your imagination with this gift wrap idea.

Paper Bags

Make your own gift bags out of brown paper bags. Smaller gifts can be wrapped in brown lunch bags, and larger gifts can be wrapped in brown grocery bags. Decorate the bags with stamps, stencils, stickers, crayons and markers. Use cut-outs from magazines or construction paper to cover store logos. If your bag does not have handles, make our own by punching two holes that are evenly spaced through both sides of the top edge. Use twine, ribbon or yarn to make the handles. For a fancier handle, braid strands of yarn together.

Tissue Paper

Saved tissue paper from gifts can be used to wrap presents. Even crinkled tissue paper can be reused. Simply crinkle all the tissue paper to make it look as if it is supposed to be that way. To get the crinkle out of old tissue paper, lay the paper flat, put a pillow case over it; iron it on a warm setting. Decorate the tissue paper with stickers and cut-outs from magazines and construction paper. Write or draw on the paper using crayons or pencils because markers, pens and paints may make the paper wet and damage it.

References

• "Wrap It Up For Kids: 99 Gift-Wrapping Ideas to Make Presents Special"; Peter van der Westen, Aad de Jong; 1992
• Epinions: Don't Let Another Birthday Present Ruin Your Family Budget!