I had a small gift to wrap, and selected this paper as not too obviously christmasy. Next I chose the fancy fabric ribbon; then the rosebuds; then decided some green would make a nice contrast to the red, and pulled the light green wire edged ribbon; then the wire shamrocks and curling ribbon; and finally the plastic leaves.

giftwrap—recycled paper, glue, wire edged, fabric, and metallic curling ribbon; silk rosebuds; plastic greenery; wire mylar shamrocks wrapped & photographed 25aug2015.^[1]

My initial hopes for this project weren't very high, and I was pleasantly surprised that it came together. Most of the components are either recycled (paper, curling ribbon) or gifts (silk rosebuds from my oldest sib's wedding, lime ribbon leftover from a shoot when my youngest worked at a photography studio) or both.

Of course, the color scheme is very christmasy, and I've used it many times before—so that's no doubt a big part of the reason it worked so readily.

Another view. To get an idea of the size, the box is one of those 20 tea-bag boxes, about 5 inches long.

The biggest expense for this sort of project is having a place to store all the bits and pieces. The other necessity is a hot glue gun. With those two things, it's really pretty easy to throw this sort of stuff together without too much effort. And it can turn a blah $6 gift into something special:)

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.