Have you ever wanted to give a charming, ultra-special gift but haven't quite figured out what a surprise element might be?
Of course any gift given to a good friend will always be appreciated (at least by a true friend!) but what about those friends who always invite you over for particularly great dinners, or friends who've gone the extra mile to help you with something? How to make a gift even more fitting and special without spending a small fortune?
Here's a great little secret: find a tea towel with one of your friend's favorite foods or flowers or a Tardis, whatever suits his or her druthers, and use that as wrapping paper.
This post is inspired by the Japanese furoshiki cloths, the large square pieces of gorgeous fabric that are used in Japan for all manner of wrapping and carrying packages. Since my deluxe tea towels are square, they work perfectly for this kind of wrapping, but you can adapt the instructions for other shaped tea towels.
#1. The Wine Bottle Wrap
I call this the "Hostess Gift with the Mostest" wrap, and you can see it in the opening photo above. To use with Chavah's Garden tea towels, start by laying out the towel face side down, so it forms a diamond, with the corner closest to you being the design corner. Place the bottle near the center of the towel but with the base slightly on the design.
To show off the design is as visible as possible, tuck in the extra fabric as you bring the corners up to the bottle neck. Use a rubber band to hold the towel in place around around the neck while you tuck.
Don't worry if this step isn't perfect, your wrap will look only a bit poofy, like old fashioned bloomers.
Then tie some raffia or a ribbon around the neck and you're ready! For a variation on this wrap, see this helpful link.
#2. The Big Book Wrap
This wrap is great for heftier books like cookbooks, gardening books, art books and the like. Start again by laying out the towel face side down, so it forms a diamond, with the corner closest to you being the design corner.
Then you're going to take the top corner (farthest away from you) and fold it over like this:
In this next step, you get to see the design start to shine:
You're almost there when:
Viola!
While I have linked to the always-helpful furoshiki website, if you want some delicious visuals, check out the lovely little book Wrapagami.
For the complete collection of Chavah's Garden tea towels, please click here.
Thus ends part one of "Tea Towels as Wrapping Paper." Part two will be out early next (Thanksgiving) week. Sign up on my emailing list for tidbits that I reserve just for my email audience.