Fun with gift wrapping

I had kind of wanted to post about this before Christmas, but I would have been revealing too much to one particular person.

I was really into this plaid gift wrap we bought--it's just Christmasy enough.* This year I tried a few new decorating methods, such as the above strand of what look to me like paper buttons. (See here for how to make them...though it should be pretty self explanatory.)

I made the bow using a variation of the above technique (that is, by cutting much larger circles and folding them in half).

I bought this giant postcard from Yeehaw Industries at the Chelsea Market holiday pop up shop and decided it would look great decorating the outside of a box.

I also made some gift tags using a silver shopping bag and rubber stamps. I really like how muted the stamp looks on the silver paper.

Dave did a little bit of stamping too. Of course the only picture I took of this one is out of focus but I think it's too amusing not to share anyway. Tune in tomorrow for what's inside the boxes!

*I know how much paper is wasted every year wrapping gifts, but I'm not about to start wrapping everything in fabric like some blogs suggest (besides, who's to say that some of the recipients won't throw out the fabric too?). I do reuse a lot of other materials anyway, from shopping bags to tissue paper.