Christmas Wrapping With M&S

I may be a papercrafter but I am embarrassed to say that when it comes to gift wrapping, I’m more ‘Is is the gift covered?’ than professional papercrafter style. And let’s not even talk about wrapping the odd-shaped presents! But recently I had the good fortune to be invited along to a Christmas wrapping event with Marks & Spencer to wrap 150 presents for Great Ormond Street Hospital.

It was a great opportunity to do something nice for the patients, their relatives and the staff at an amazing hospital, whilst hanging out with other bloggers plus being able to pick up a few wrapping tips all at the same time.

M&S Christmas Decorations, gifts and wrap

The halls were decked and we all felt very festive as we wrapped our way through an assortment of M&S gifts, from toys for the children to gift items for the adults. Some were super easy to wrap – give me a box shape to wrap any day. Some were a bit more challenging but for these we had M&S nibbles and drinks to help us through!

There were three main techniques shared for making stylish gift wrap presents: the pleated wrap, the pocket wrap and the DIY gift bag technique; you can see a video for each of them plus a video for a lovely bow over in the Marks & Spencer’s New Way With Wrapping Guide.

M&S presents under the tree

The enormous green Christmas Cracker-shaped present with the little sausage dogs wearing Santa’s hats on the paper, under the tree on the left, is one of mine!

My personal favourite from the tips that were shared was the DIY gift bag technique and I thought I would give that a go when M&S challenged me to wrap a difficult-shaped item from their range. Perfect for these Pull On Fairisle Slipper Boots, I mean what could be more difficult to wrap? Well apart from something round perhaps! So armed with a pack of Christmas wrap, tags, twine, ribbon and adhesive tape, I made a DIY gift bag.

Wrapping a M&S gift

Making a DIY Gift bag from M&S paper, folding over the bottom

Making a DIY Gift bag from M&S paper, making the bottom

A M&S gift wrapped present ready to go

I changed my wrapping up a little bit and added some tissue paper in the top before closing the bag then tied some ribbon around the excess wrap to give it a Christmas cracker-like end. Not that Christmas cracker-style wrapped presents is an obsession with me or anything (Whispers: *it so is).

And because I am a papercrafter and can’t leave anything papery alone, I also cut out some holly leaf shapes from green cardstock, lightly folded them down the middle and added them in a cluster on the back of the tag. Just to give it another personal touch.

Making cardstock Holly leaves for a tag

A massive thank you to M&S for the evening of wrapping, the gift and the wrapping paper but also for all those great gifts going to Great Ormond Street Hospital, what a wonderful idea.

I hope you find their Christmas wrapping guide useful, I certainly did and will be using this gift bag technique again. I might even try some of the pleated wraps too.

[This post is a sponsored collaboration with Marks & Spencer. All the photographs, words and views are my own]

Kim Dellow

Kim Dellow is an artist–designer–film-maker living the creative life in London, UK. She's a freelance creative for the craft industry and others, and she loves to share her art-ventures on her blog.

This Post Has 8 Comments

  1. kartenkunst

    Hower nice a beautiful wrapped gift is, but nobody should really use ordinary wrapping paper for environment reasons. It only fills the landscape, even when it is a lovely one. It has to be produced, printed which costs avoidable energy.
    Foil is no-go as that doesn't even rott.

    I usually use gift bags and boxes (so no probs with odd shapes) as they can be used many more times. Apart from being re-usable, they can be personalised to fit the occasion and/or the receipient

    In the cases any sort of wrapping has to be used it is only brown parcel wrapping (yes, that has to be produced as well), that can be used plain or personalised with ie stamps.
    My grandsons still love pressies with their names on or funny stamps. But what always is a big hit is news paper! Yes, ordinary news paper. It is a big hit with my customers as I do decorations like bows or flowers whatever fits the occasion from news paper as well.

    Yeah.. I am some sort of recycling freak LOL. I even save cushionings in parcels which are often brown paper. And the crushed paper is amazing for wrapping.

    Another idea are kitchen towels, especially when giving a gift for a "cook or baker". Guest towels are good for giving ie shower gels, body lotions, bath stuff.

    There are so many possibilities for wrapping gifts, there is no need to buy wrapping paper.

    Off you go Kim, get creativ… you can do it 🙂

    1. Kim Dellow

      You are not alone! I also try to recycle wrapping and packaging. It is a great thing to do! Have a good weekend. Kim

  2. Julia Nyanyo

    I always mean to give beautifully wrapped gifts and I pin loads of ideas but often end up with something a little more ordinary than I meant to. I have been better lately though, it is nice to receive a beautifully wrapped gift so it's nice to take the time to try to give them too.

    1. Kim Dellow

      Me too Julia, I have this perfect package in my head but my finished wrap never looks like it *sigh* 😀

  3. Ruth

    What a lovely evening, even if it did challenge you – I am truly terrible at wrapping, but with kids it usually only is on the gift for about 10 seconds so I'm not too fussy! I think I'm going to just by square presents from now on…. ? Xx

    1. Kim Dellow

      Ha ha! Yeah, it doesn't really have to look perfect if it isn't going to be gift wrapped for long!

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