Wrapping Paper in a Pinch

I am sure that we all at one time or another have had a wrapping paper emergency.  Well that is what happened to me yesterday.  It was my husband's birthday and I had just the perfect gift for him, found the perfect sized box, and then went to get the wrapping paper.  To my horror, we were all out!  Now what.  All I found was this adorable bow that had a cupcake on it.  I didn't want to run to the store for paper and started searching the house for something I could use.  I didn't want to use the old newspaper as wrapping paper.  I wanted something special.  I was hoping I had some freezer paper in my stash, but no such luck.  But I did run across a roll of craft paper.  Where it came from or why I had it was beyond me, but I snatched it up and got to work.  I had the perfect rubber stamps to go with the cupcake theme on the bow.  So I randomly stamped cupcakes all over the paper.  It still looked a little bland, so I added the happy birthday sentiment stamp as well.  These are two of my favorite stamps and I am so sorry that I do not know the name of them as I purchased them in a box of stamps at a yard sale. 

 I could have left it alone, but no, I thought it needed some color.  I tried several of my markers, but because of the brown paper, the colors didn't show up well.  So I started with the icing on the cupcakes and used my white colored pencil.

 I didn't color this perfectly.  Just scribbled some color in the icing area.  I was liking it so far.  Next, I took a pink jelly pen and colored in the cupcake papers.

Next, I used a  red jelly pen and colored in one of the hearts on the tops of the cupcakes.  I used a pink wink of stella pen to color the other heart.

With a green metallic and a neon yellow jelly pen, I colored in the loops on the cupcake icing to make it look like sprinkles.  These colors really showed up well against the brown paper.

 I felt like it needed some yellow to match the bow, so again I went to the colored pencils and colored in the back background of the sentiment stamp with yellow.  The hearts were colored in with a pink glitter jelly pen.

I was very pleased with the overall look, but the images had faded after coloring over them with the colored pencils, so I went over all the detail lines using a black sharpie.  This really made the design pop!

All that was left was to wrap the package.

All in all, I think it turned out really cute.  My husband could not believe that I made and colored the wrapping paper.  He loved it and his gift!

This got me to thinking of all the things you could do with this technique.  Imagine making a greeting card or gift tag and matching wrapping paper.  What a great rainy day project for the kids.  Roll out some craft paper, let them stamp it all over and color.  Then you have a great wrapping paper to wrap grandma's and grandpap's presents.  Take photos of the kids working on the paper and save some of the paper to use on your scrapbook page.  The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination.  

I hope you find this helpful if you too, find yourself in a wrapping paper emergency.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Jeanne

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