Take on Christmas wrapping and win! Don’t let Christmas stress get you down. Get creative with 16 of our best Christmas wrapping hacks and tricks designed to save you time and sprinkle a little festive magic on the art of gift wrapping.
Our Christmas wrapping tips will help your presents look like they’ve been lovingly wrapped by professionals. From sharp edges and hidden tape to clean cuts and imaginative labels, our hacks can help you wrap even the most awkward of gifts.
1. Use a tape dispenser to banish lost tape ends forever
Struggling with sticky tape is the bane of wrapping. Banish the frustration of painstakingly hunting for the lost end of sticky tape or wrestling to cut the right length in one of the simplest great Christmas wrapping hacks. There’s prosecco and mulled wine waiting!
Instead, buy a heavy-duty tape dispenser such as the classic Scotch C10 Desk Tape Dispenser. Check it fits popular brands such as Sellotape, and prepare to have your wrapping time cut in half!
2. Get good-quality tape for present perfection
Buying cheap sticky tape is a false economy for Christmas. Poor stickiness and tape that begins peeling off of parcels before the big day is a recipe for disaster. Invest in some good-quality tape such as Sellotape to keep wrapping well-and-truly stuck down.
3. Secret Christmas wrapping hacks: double-sided tape
Professionally wrapped gifts aren’t adorned with strips of sticky tape. Instead, professional wrappers break out the double-sided tape for gift wrapping. Double-sided can be stuck to the inside of seams to neatly stick wrapping paper together while discretely remaining out of sight.
4. Prepare your wrapping workspace
Make like an army general this yuletide. To take on Christmas wrapping and win you need to start with a clear workspace. Ensure you have plenty of lighting, lots of space and wipe-clean surfaces to easily scoop up escaped glitters and scraps of wrapping paper. Keep tools in one place and have a clear spot to store your wrapped up presents.
Christmas wrapping hacks not enough? Avoid Christmas stress with our 10 tips for a stress-free Christmas.
5. Score folds for a professional finish
Sloppy folds and bulging sides on gifts make for some scruffy-looking presents. Professional wrappers know that sharp corners and neat edges make a wrapped gift look extra special. Compress folds by running the handle of scissors or your thumbnail along the fold to make it sharp. This is especially important when diagonals come together to avoid bulging seams and sides.
6. Use a metal rule and self-healing board to make straight lines
The best Christmas wrapping paper has helpful gridlines printed on the non-decorative side, designed to help you make straight cuts when trimming. If you can’t find paper with lines printed on the inside, invest in an inexpensive heavy metre rule such as the Faithfull RULE100 rule which is less than £10 to aid creating straight lines.
Use a self-healing board such as the Ansio A2 cutting mat to place the paper on. Align the rule and slice with the sharp blade get wonderfully cut sharp, straight edges.
7. Christmas wrapping hacks: perfect Christmas boxes
Don’t let poorly wrapped boxes with messy sides and clumsy folds take the shine off the wonderful gift inside. The secret to professional-looking wrapping is to place the box and measure the paper before trimming.
Place the box in the centre of wrapping paper and wrap the paper around the box before making any cuts. Aim to overlap the edges by a few centimetres, then cut to size. The trick is to have the paper overlap slightly when folding the edges, resulting in a tightly fitting wrap that looks divine.
8. Wrap diagonally to use less paper
It’s a little-known trick in our line-up of Christmas wrapping hacks but did you know that wrapping diagonally uses less paper. It can save a festive headache if you’re having to stretch Christmas wrap over a lot of gifts. Simply place the gift in the middle of the cut wrapping paper diagonally to the paper edges. Pull each corner of the paper up so they meet in the middle and secure with tape.
9. The secret to wrapping scarves and clothing
Wrapping soft clothing can be a nightmare, resulting in a flabby misshapen parcel and gift wrapping that has a tendency to rip and tear easily. The solution is surprisingly simple: cut a piece of card to the size of the folded item and insert it into one of the folds. This adds rigidity, allowing you to fold the paper properly and create sharp corners. It also reduces the risk of rips and accidentally revealing the contents inside.
10. Make a gift bag – crafty Christmas wrapping hacks
Forget forking out for expensive gift bags – you can get a similar effect with some wrapping paper and a dash of creativity. If you’ve got an awkward-shaped gift, simply trim enough paper to generously wrap the present, folding it in half and sealing the long edge with tape. Fold one of the unsealed sides into two opposing triangle shapes before bringing together and sealing to create the bottom of the bag. Pop the gift inside, then fold over the remain unsealed edge and tape down. Decorate with some ribbon and a bow to finish.
11. Use wrapping paper to make bows and ribbons
If you’re running short on decorative bows, or want to create some bows and ribbons that match the wrapping paper then you can craft some from the wrap itself. Simply trim a strip of Christmas wrap into narrow strips of around 1cm wide. Use a pair of scissors to curl the paper strips, running the paper over the closed blades of the scissors. Assemble the curled strips on top of each other and attach with double-sided tape onto the wrapped gift.
12. Smooth crinkled ribbons the easy way
If you’ve unpacked stored gift wrap and decorations from last year, you may find your ribbons are crumpled and creased. You can smarten them up by running them through a set of hair straighteners set to warm. It’s quick, easy and gets your ribbons in tip-top shape for the festive season.
13. Personalise gift-giving with colour-coded wrapping paper
You can do away with Christmas tags altogether – saving time into the bargain – by using colour-coded paper for each person. Wrap all the presents for each person in their own coloured paper – it’s fun to choose one based on their personality for an extra twist. Place all the presents under the tree and people will be able to easily retrieve their parcels from the present pile.
14. Colour co-ordinate and be brave with colours
Avoid a jumbled, confusing pile of presents littered around your Christmas tree. Enhance your festive look by choosing complementary tones and colour palettes when buying Christmas wrap. For a traditional look, choose two core colours for wrapping paper, such as red and gold and match with alternate gold and red ribbons and labels.
Alternatively, several tones of one colour such as gold and use it across paper and ribbons for a smart look. Be brave and try a bold, distinctive colour palette such as green or blue to add some wow factor.
15. Photograph gift tags add true Christmas magic
To bring a smile to loved-ones faces on Christmas morning before they even open a present, replace dull labels with ones of your own creation. One approach that’s sure to add to the festive cheer is to print out photos of the recipients and use them for labels. Be creative and hunt out old photos from previous Christmases or photos of when they were children.
16. Store wrapping and decorations properly
With the wrapping done and mulled wine beckoning, it can be tempting to chuck wrapping, bows and labels into a plastic bag and call it a year. But if you want to get on the nice list, you’ll need one final burst of yuletide organisation. Buy a dedicated gift wrap box and use it to store ribbons, labels and bows. Roll unused wrapping paper into tubes and secure with a rubber band, storing it flat on its side to avoid ends getting crumpled.
You could even buy cardboard tubes – the kind that is used to ship posters through the mail – and store wrapping paper inside those to keep it in pristine condition until next Christmas.
