Burgundy Again
But does it show an improvement?

Just before Christmas I posted an ornament I wrapped in beautiful burgundy paper, which was okay so far as it goes. I have to say, though, if these are any more successful, I owe that to my friend Page, whose decorations I mostly plopped wholesale onto paper that vaguely co-ordinated, with perhaps a few extra clumps of mylar shreds or gold curling paper to soften her crisp elegant designs into the usual textural messes I favor.

Group shot. This image has been rather heavily gimped, but even so the contrasts between the dark burgundy and light paper are still great.

First effort: basically slapped the whole decoration on top of a box and called it done. Unlike my friend Page's superb sense of proportion, mine hardly squeaks at leaving no wrapping to properly frame the focal point. Note the musical theme, with horn, drum and musical scroll. Lovely.

 

This has a touch of purple in it, hardly surprising in one who adores the color so. Once again, slap, glue, done. Oh, wait, I probably tucked the gold curling ribbon in there. I'm sure my friend would've chosen something like the gold-printed burgundy paper for the background, but I figured this gold and white paper was good enough. Besides, I had a lot of it.

 

Ah, one in which I finally had enough surface area to add in a few of my own ideas. I added the strands of beads (I love putting strands of cheap beads on gifts, like little watch-chains hanging down) and tucked the ripped burgundy ribbon and gold mylar shreds at the top left corner. The photo almost but not quite captures an interesting quality of the paper: the random holographic ‘chunks’ versus the metallic snowflake design. (You can get some very interesting lighting by shining incandescent light on one side of an object and allowing cloudy day light to come from the other side—if the camera is adjusted for incandescent, you get a gold cast from that, and blue from outdoors. Just a little shows here;)

 

file created 26dec05 sylvus tarn