One last gift wrapping hurrah before Christmas, using birds as a theme. I don't have any Christmas-related bird stories, but I can tell you about Sylvester. When I was about 5 years old, a baby Senegal dove fell out of its nest and into our backyard. We rescued it, and I named him Sylvester after Sylvester the Cat from the cartoon Sylvester and Tweetie Pie. It made perfect sense to me at the time. We kept Sylvester in a lined box in the laundry and fed him barley and water. Every day, my Mum would take Sylvester outside for flying lessons, which involved putting him on her arm and waving it up and down. One day, he flew off, and we never saw him again, much to my devastation. To this day, my family still refers to Senegal doves as "Sylvesters", to the extent that I had to phone my Dad this morning to ask him "
What kind of birds are Sylvesters?".
I like to use decorations when wrapping gifts, and I found these metallic bird decorations at a craft fair earlier in the year. For this gift, I've used red tissue paper and hemp twine for a minimalist, slightly Japanese look.
For this gift bag, I've suspended the bird mid flight using red and white twine.
Another way to feature birds in your gift wrapping is by using decorative ribbon. This ribbon is cotton twill, which always looks good against brown paper. The ribbon on the bag is glued on using all purpose craft glue.
Red and light blue is such a classic colour combination, and this red and cream ribbon really pops against the glossy blue paper.
Not strictly gift wrapping, but I made these cards using decorative paper to complete the theme. For this card, I used a Christmas decoration as a template.
The card on the right featured in my 13 November 2011 post on Christmas cards and gift tags.
If your relationship with birds is more Tippi Hedren than Sylvester, you may find using birds as your Christmas wrapping theme quite cathartic.
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