Collage Gift Wrapping Ideas

You can present a gift to its recipient in many ways, including a in gift bag, unwrapped or wrapped in decorative wrapping paper. Make your own collage wrapping paper to add a personal touch or to create your own gift wrap in a pinch when you don't have any wrapping paper or gift bags in the house.

Candy Wrappers

Collage wrapping paper made from recycled candy wrappers is perfect for wrapping a teen or child's gift or a gift for a loved one who loves bright colors. Use candy wrappers that can be cleanly removed from the candy or easily wiped off such as Starburst and Hershey bar wrappers. Cut wrappers into squares or rectangles if they don't already come in one of those shapes. For example, Hershey bars used to be wrapped in a silver paper wrapper and then had a rectangular wrapper that wrapped around that, but now Hershey bars are wrapped in a single wrapper that is sealed at the ends. The ends of the wrapper would need to be trimmed off for the wrapper to be able to open into a rectangle. Wipe off any candy residue with a damp cloth before you use the wrappers to make your gift wrap. Take a plain sheet of brown shipping paper large enough to wrap the gift, the kind that comes on a tube just like wrapping paper, and cover it with the candy wrappers. You can make a design with the wrappers or just layer them onto the paper randomly. Cover the whole top of the collaged paper with strips of packaging tape, wrapping the ends of the strips of tape over the edge of the paper to seal the wrappers onto the paper. Wrap the gift like you normally would with the collage side of the paper facing out.

Magazines are full of all different kinds of ads, articles and photo layouts making them a fitting resource for anyone looking to make their own collage wrapping paper with a personal touch. Cut out images and words from magazines that fit the occasion, the gift's recipient or that give hints to what is to be wrapped in your homemade wrapping paper. Lay the images and words you clipped out on a sheet of brown shipping paper and seal them to the paper with packaging tape. Again, wrap the ends of the strips of tape around the edges of the shipping paper. Wrap the gift as you would normally.

A very simple collage wrapping paper project is one made with personal photos. Print off personal photos of the gift recipient or photos of you and the gift recipient together. Place the photos on a blank sheet of brown shipping paper. Use fine tip permanent markers to write little captions about the photos next to or under them on the paper. You can draw little arrows with the markers connecting the pictures to their captions if you feel that it isn't clear what caption goes with what photo. Use strips of packaging tape to seal the paper and the photos together, wrapping the ends of the strips around the edges of the packaging paper to seal it all. Wrap the gift like you normally would.