Best Gift-Wrapping Supplies (original) (raw)
The Best Gift-Wrapping Supplies, According to Stylish People
By ,a Strategist writer covering décor, furniture, and garment care. They previously worked as an editor at Garage magazine.
The first thing you should know about great gift-wrappers is that they’re constitutionally thrifty. As a fussy wrapper myself, I assumed that people whose gift-wrapping I admired spend more money on supplies: fancier paper, some niche tools like a bone folder, silk ribbons. Not so: “I will reuse proper wrapping paper for years, salvaged into smaller and smaller pieces until it disintegrates,” says Kelsey Keith, editorial director at Herman Miller. This rationale is, in part, pragmatic: “My theory with gift wrapping is that most people are going to just shred the paper off the gift and throw it away,” says Locavore Guide founder Caroline Weaver, so it’s more about creativity than expense.
In terms of what can be used as gift wrap, the sky’s the limit. People told me about wrapping presents in pages from calendars, wallpaper samples, video-game posters, bodega flower wrap, kids’ drawings, old copies of Interview magazine, leftover luxury-brand boxes, and sheets from newspaper art sectionsto wrap gifts_._ “I like how newspaper looks as a wrapping paper,” says Helena Barquet, co-owner of Coming Soon, which wraps gifts in a custom newsprint pattern. “With a ribbon, it’s really beautiful.”
Even the world’s most resourceful paper-saver occasionally needs to replenish their gift-wrap stash and stock up on other supplies — from decorative ribbon to colorful tape and gift-labeling tools — that help add “a layer of unexpected delight,” as designer Erin Jang phrases it, to the gift-giving experience. (And if you’re still shopping for gifts, we have guides for everyone on your list.)
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Almost everyone I spoke to mentioned undyed brown kraft paper as the Platonic ideal for gift wrapping. “I’m a complete sucker for brown-paper packages tied up with string,” says Harper’s Bazaar fashion news director Rachel Tashjian. “They just look so right! Especially if you have a great little gift card with a winky phrase.” If you’re shopping IRL, you can buy a roll at office and shipping stores as well as at art stores.
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Barquet once wrapped a gift in leftover Mylar — “It looked like something you might get if somebody’s giving you a bottle of champagne” — and says that it appeared fancier than the sum of its parts. (You can buy it on Amazon, and I’ve had good luck finding it at dollar stores.) Mylar’s slinky, liquid texture makes it hard to fold, so Barquet’s trick is to scrunch the material around the gift into a ball, then tie a ribbon on top.
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I am a big fan of Carta Varese wrapping paper, which has been manufactured in Italy since the 1600s. The patterns are ancient yet zingy, with colors so dense you’d think the ink was still wet. My favorite source is 32 Degrees North, who have paused shipping until after Christmas, but you can find it at the online retailer Fine Art Store; I also just discovered that New York stationery store East Village Postal sells their gift boxes.
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“Wrap and Red Cap Cards make the best one-of-a-kind papers out there,” says Jang. I especially like this star print and a neon-green bow pattern.
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SC103 designers Claire McKinney and Sophie Andes-Gascon have a “Mr. Bean from _Love Actually_”–esque gift-wrapping philosophy at their storefront in Two Bridges. They buy much of their paper from eBay and also recommend a big pad of newsprint, plus “twine, twisty-ties, pipe cleaners, and index cards from your local hardware store.”
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Jang likes to wrap presents in tissue paper, which she buys in rolls from City Papery in midtown Manhattan (it’s also my one-stop-shop for every size of gift box). She doubles up the paper to keep it opaque and adds multicolor circle stickers on top to “give it a Yayoi sticker treatment.”
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For a reusable gift box you don’t have to wrap, Keith recommends Hay’s glossy cardboard storage boxes. “You can reuse them as photo storage, a container for stashing office supplies, a sock organizer, et cetera,” she says.
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Once you have a ribbon box, it emits some kind of signal to the universe: Ribbon starts to find its way to you. I have so much and have paid for almost none of it. To seed your collection, a few good options from Etsy: a jacquard horse ribbon, colorful leather cord used for bolo ties, and Pleats Please–esque satin.
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“I’m obsessed with buying ribbon,” says Weaver. “I might not buy wrapping paper, but I sure as hell buy a lot of ribbon.” She gets it from fabric stores and Paper Mart, which has “the best ribbon on the internet.” She likes this double-face satin ribbon that comes in more than 70 colors.
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Weaver stockpiles grosgrain ribbon from Mokuba, a Japanese brand known for high-quality trims. “I have more rolls than I’m willing to admit,” she says. Weaver bought hers in the Garment District IRL (East Coast Trimming has some), but if you want to stick to shopping online, you can find miscellaneous colors and sizes on Etsy. (Mood Fabrics sells similar garment-quality grosgrain ribbon in a wider range of sizes and colors online.)
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For gift-wrapping decorations, “the hardware store is a treasure trove,” says Keith. “Painter’s tape can be used as tape or to create negative space if you’re doing a DIY pattern. I love twine or brightly colored nylon cord as package string. Both are very sturdy.”
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Two-tone baker’s twine is one of my favorite ways to dress up a simple wrapping paper.
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“I very strongly feel that MT makes the only washi tape that is actually sticky and actually removable,” Weaver says. “It is significantly stickier than any other washi tape. They have so many solid colors that are really lovely, and the finish is really flat.” There are plenty of places to buy it IRL and online — former Strategist senior editor Chelsea Peng recommends getting it at Yoseka in Greenpoint.
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For the fanciest of fancy papers, Weaver uses Glue Dots instead of tape. (They’re also beloved by scrapbookers.) They “work a lot better” than double-sided tape, she says, and they’re easy to remove without tearing the gift wrap: “If I’m using a gorgeous marble paper that I just really do not want to damage at all, I think this is the best option.”
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Jang says that “the only gift tags I adore” are these cardstock tags from Knot & Bow. They come in more than a dozen colors, from off-white to highlighter yellow.
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Strategist senior kitchen and dining writer Emma Wartzman uses these large, uncoated gift tags and a collection of rubber stamps to dress up kraft-paper packages. If you’re in the New York area, check out Casey Rubber Stamp for a wide range of designs. (You can also make a custom stamp, starting at $25, which usually requires one-to-three days of turnaround time.)
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If you want to make your own gift tags, a tag punch is “really, really great to have around,” says Weaver. (At her stationery shop, they used a similar punch to make gift tags out of the pads of paper shoppers scribbled on to test out pens.) It’s pragmatic: You usually can’t reuse a gift tag, so DIYing it is a way to avoid splurging on something that’s going straight into the recycling. “I’m not gonna invest a lot of time or resources into a fancy tag when I could just DIY one that’s cuter,” she says.
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These are Weaver’s “general favorite holiday-season envelope-addressing, label-writing, everything pens.” The pen has a brush tip that’s similar to that of a calligraphy marker, but “it’s the most user-friendly version of that type of pen,” she says. “They make anyone’s handwriting instantly look fancier.”
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“I love writing someone’s name in script in huge letters right on a wrapped package,” says Keith. Jang recommends marking up a solid-color paper as a last-minute gift-decorating hack: “Get a fat Sharpie marker and write a message or draw on the face of the package — or, even better, on all sides of the box! Use enormous bubble or block letters or stretched-out script to write the person’s name or a short message.”
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