paper bake sew: Christmas Wrapping Ideas

In 1978, my family flew to Hong Kong on Christmas Day for a holiday. As a child, I remember being very excited at receiving a foam snowman decoration with my in-flight meal, courtesy of Cathay Pacific. I also remember being pretty excited by the break in family tradition. Up until this moment, we had been a turkey, roast vegetables and Christmas pudding kind of a family, and it felt like we were doing something really radical.

In Hong Kong, we did all the touristy things, and a few non-touristy as well. On one of our shopping expeditions, we came across a Russian shop where Dad bought me this Matryoshka nesting doll.

As a consequence, I've always associated Matryoshka dolls with Christmas. And it seems others do too as lots of different Matryoshka products are now available. Building on my last two posts, here are some Christmas gift wrapping and gift tag ideas using Matryoshka dolls as the theme.

Matryoshka au natural

As you already know, I am a big fan of brown paper and twine, and stamping brown paper with a Matryoshka doll in red ink screams Christmas.

The gift tag is a luggage tag covered with brown paper, and is stamped with a smaller Matryoshka. I've tied it all together with some navy blue paper twine.

Here I've used brown paper and a teal blue decorative ribbon. I've made the gift tag by cutting out a Matryoshka doll from some recycled gift wrap.

Red and blue is always a bright combination for Christmas. Here I've used gift wrap, which is made from recycled paper, in two ways. The cylindrical gift has been topped and tailed with some blue grosgrain ribbon.

Matryoshka cute

Pink, green and white is always a really popular colour theme for Christmas.

This Matryoshka themed Christmas paper looks good when paired with some green ric-rak as the accent colour.

A Matryoshka embroidered ribbon works well against glossy, white paper.

For the gift on the left, I've used pink sheer curtain fabric to wrap the present and create a thick bow. For the gift tag, I've cut out one of the Matryoshkas from the wrapping paper and stuck it to a white luggage tag.

Matryoshka luxe

This is handmade paper from India (which I happened to buy in Seattle), and the colours and design give it a real luxe quality. I've paired it with with some olive green grosgrain ribbon and black ric-rak for two different looks.

For this luxe look, I've stamped and embossed some black tissue paper using gold embossing powder. I've finished the look with a sheer gold ribbon, thick black glossy 'twine' and a gold wooden heart.