Gift wrapping, vintage style.

Today is my mum's birthday - Happy Birthday Mum! I'm really excited as my parents and my brother are coming to visit this weekend, and my mum and brother are arriving tomorrow!

I wrapped mum's present earlier (won't say what it is, in case she reads this!) and thought I'd share it with you.

I'm a big fan of wrapping gifts in brown paper. It's eco-friendly, MUCH cheaper than normal wrapping paper, and looks good. I began by wrapping the gift in said brown paper, and gathered the rest of my equipment together:

I used materials that I already had in the house - a piece of red card, and some red paper ribbon that was left over from Christmas two years ago. 

The small square picture that you can just about make out (larger image coming up), is a thumbnail image from last year's free Ideal Home calendar. On the back, there were smaller versions of the main images used in the calendar, and I thought it would be a sweet idea to cut them out and use them as gift tags. I'm going to give people the picture that corresponds with their birthday - my mum's birthday is February, so I used the image that was used for February in the calendar. Actually, it's just dawned on me that I bought her one of the heart shaped sconces in the picture for Christmas a few years ago, so it's even more suitable!

I made the calendar image into a gift tag by sticking it onto a piece of red card, and then punching a hole into it using a mini-hole punch in the shape of a heart (well, it is February!).

It was at this point, that I decided against the red paper ribbon - it was a bit too much, and took attention away from the red of the gift tag. So, I used plain old string (from our kitchen drawer) instead. I'm really pleased with the result - it is very simple, with a vintage feel.

I can't wait to give it to my mum when she gets here tomorrow!

What do you tend to do when you wrap gifts? Any tips? Are you a fan of brown paper and string?