Gift wrapping ideas from "An Irish Attic"

I've made beautiful gift bags from all sizes of brown, white and retail stores' paper bags. Caution: you won't fool anyone into believing that this is a store-bought bag, but you will garner rave reviews for your creativity and thoughtfulness.

If your bag has it's own handle skip the following cuff and handle steps.

Handle: either use a hand held hole puncher punch two holes one inch from the top on either side of the long edge of bag. Thread raffia, silk cord, ribbon, fabric strips, hem tape, ric-rack or twine through the holes and knot the ends to keep handle from coming back through the hole or staple your handles to the bag and cover the staples with a decorative item.

• paper dollies
• ribbon scraps- glue in a stripe pattern onto bag
• puff paints, paint pens or markers
• fabric scraps
• glitter
• lace scraps
• comics
• stickers
• cutouts from previously used gift wrap
• dried or silk flowers
• cutouts from old greeting cards, magazines or photos
• sprinkle sand, confetti or glitter over glue "drawings'
• spray bag with glue and sprinkle with confetti
• cutouts from self-adhesive shelf liner
• newspaper headlines appropriate to the recipient or occasion
• squirt glue on bag to write a message or design & sprinkle with glitter or sand

• glue on dried or silk flowers

• use paint pens to draw your garden - do this while the bag is flat before doing the above decorations.

• cut out pictures of flowers from magazines, spray backs with glue and arrange on bag

• glue wood, cardboard or paper cutouts of animals, a barn ... to bag

• use paint pens to draw your garden - do this while the bag is flat before doing the above decorations.

• glue stray or lost farm and animal toys to bag

Spray glue over rest of bag and coat with blue glitter.

Arrange and glue small rectangles of terry-cloth or felt for beach towels, small people figures (stray toys or magazine cut-outs) on towels, in "sand" and "water", stick stems of paper drink umbrellas through bag behind people and tape on inside to hold, fish and boats in the water ...

• Soak the label off, dry thoroughly and cover container with spray paint. When paint is dry glue on magazine cutouts of baby items or cutouts from previously used gift wrap.

• Don't bother soaking the label off, just cover it with magazine cutouts or gift wrap cutouts. Leave the rest of the container as is.

• Wrap with fabric, hot gluing at top and bottom. Hot glue ribbon, raffia or lace to top and bottom edge.

• Wrap with leftover wallpaper or contact paper. Hot glue ribbon, raffia or lace to top and bottom edge.

Leave the top of the container as is (make sure there's no price tag on it though!). Take one baby wipe that you've set aside to thoroughly dry. Write your message on the wipe leaving one corner blank on which you'll write "Pull Here". Insert the wipe through the slit of the container lid so that the "Pull Here" message shows at the top.

Then take all of your gifts and tie them together with a thin ribbon. Hold the resulting string of gifts over container and allow to drop into container in the order they are strung together. Tie last bit of ribbon to the bottom of your baby wipes message. Replace lid.

• Write a birthday message with paint pens. Do this while the bag is flat before doing the above decorations.

• Cut out front of a previously used birthday card and glue to front of bag.

• Glue a birthday message and/or picture printed from your computer.

Covered Bag: glue any of the below to the inside edge of bag and then allow to hang over the edge to cover outside of bag:

• curled ribbon
• moss
• any items listed under TISSUE PAPER
• lace or fringed fabric (if not long enough, glue layers to outside of bag, allowing each layer to cover the edge of previous layer or glue fabric, magazine pictures of flowers or lace ... to bag so that the lace or fabric falling from top of bag covers the glue line.

Marbled Bag: use crumbled cellophane or newspaper to dab on light coats of paint (use one or more colors).

Splatter Bag: fill paint brush with paint and shake over bag. Use tone-on-tone or multi-colors.

Shiny Bag: once you finish designing your bag spray with several light coats of spray-on clear acrylic.

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