Making Holiday Gift Wrapping - Part One - A Party

I got my hands on Gwen's holiday stencils and the ideas immediately started going round in my head. I mean, look at them! And yes, those are fairy lights shining down on them. I do so love to have fairy lights shining down on my desk. 

First I stenciled on white paper. Then on a brown tag. Finally on tissue paper. The possibilities for making materials for gift wrapping were amazing. 

I couldn't keep all this goodness to myself, now could I? So we decided to have a gift-wrap making party and enjoy making our wrapping with our friends. Now I must admit that some of my friends are not all that comfortable with being asked to make things. They say things like "I'm not artistic." or "I don't make things." Usually, I nod my head and tell them that there will be refreshments and they can hang out with the other people who don't think they can do it making hot chocolate. Frankly, some of their work ends up being amazing.  

When having a party that involves paint, covering the tables with craft paper and securing with duct tape relieves those what-if-I-spill-on-the-table jitters. Frankly, I encourage people to draw on the paper. It's so much more interesting that way. 

Here's the tag I made using markers. 

One participant mimicked the poinsettia stencil using one of the makeup sponges. 

Another made stripes of color and stenciled the poinsettia over them. 

In this picture, you can see many different approaches. 

This was a careful stenciler who made beautifully crisp images. 

This friend believed she could not do this stenciling thing. Imagine a package wrapped in this! I love the colors she used. 

This friend has a mathematical and geometric sense of balance. 

Here the stencil was stamped onto paper, cut out and pasted to a large piece of paper. Paint was added on top and other elements added around it. 

More color was added ontop. 

Here it emerges. 

Brownish red paint in a spray bottle was used to spritz the stencil. Then the stencil was used with red paint to create more poinsettias. 

They were then layered and glued to the paper to create a full and dimensional work. 

The party was fun. It was especially enjoyable to see the different things my friends did with the stencils. It was a good way to gain a new perspective.

Stay tuned - That was Holiday Gift Wrapping Part One. Later this week I will reveal what I did with these stencils to make some unique gift wrapping. Hope you will come back and visit me then. 

Until then, I would love to know:
Do you make your own wrapping material?
Have you ever done it? How did it go? 
What are your favorite gift wrap go-tos?