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This is an exciting book! Jennifer Playford has taken the Japanese art of Furoshiki, or fabric-wrapping, and compiled a lovely, simple guide.
I’m totally incorporating some of this into my upcoming holiday wrapping. (And, making use of some fabric stash in the process.)
Wrapagami offers up 25 ways to use square or rectangular pieces of fabric to create packages of all shapes and sizes.
So many cool ideas here! I love this single bottle wrap. There’s also a wrap for two bottles together, and another for candlesticks.
…And some wraps that take the form of tote bags. Jennifer even shows how you can attach a set of purse handles to a wrapagami bag. So the gift wrap is a useful second gift.
Speaking of useful second gifts, check this one out – it’s a shirt!
There are also a few fun ways to incorporate these techniques into home decor, such as this beautiful tissue-box cover. (Yup. Pretty much blows the plastic canvas ones out of the water.)
Each wrap is well-illustrated with Jennifer’s diagrams, which make even the most complex wraps very easy to understand.
And what’s this?! We have a fabulous giveaway! St. Martin’s Griffin has donated a copy of the book, plus two of Jennifer’s own Furochic wrap kits. Woo!
To enter, leave a comment on this post, and tell me about one of your favorite creative gift-wrapping methods. I’ll draw a winner at noon PST on Saturday, Sept. 12. Good Luck!
UPDATE: Congrats to Liz, our big winner! I’m emailing you now…
I really like to wrap gifts in plain brown craft paper then use cool ribbons and other adornments to spice it up.
Ooh! I have really been wanting a copy of this book!
I like wrapping with fabric, but only recently heard of furoshiki. It puts my feeble attempts to shame. So beautiful and simple!
My sister is the queen of creative wrapping, using comic strip pages from the paper as well as plain brown paper which she then stamps and makes unique and fun.
I like to make my own tags, but I want to try “wrapping”
hmm favourite gift wrapping method…. um using tattered book covers. reuses the covers and often are pretty colourful and sometimes good for a laugh. :)
I remember reading about this technique in Craft magazine! I am so happy someone thought about making a book about this green & useful craft!
Like Crafterati, one of my favorite creative gift-wrapping method is by using brown craft paper. No matter what the occasion is, you just wrap your gift with the paper and use stamps to decorate it. For an extra “crafty” look, you just add some knitting yard for ribbon. And voilà! ;-)
I'm lucky, living in Sacramento gives me access to some pretty cool Japanese shopping, so fabric gift wrapping isn't a new idea for me. I've been picking up furoshiki when I come across cute/interesting/vintagey/pretty pieces and love to incorporate them for birthdays and holidays and stuff. I have a really cute one meant for wrapping a child's gift; it's got a little woodcut bunny on the corner of the fabric, a kitty on another corner, a toy on yet another corner, so you can change which corner you'd like showing by how you wrap it.
I love furoshiki! My favorite wrap has to be the two-book one; we exchange a lot of book presents at Christmas!
Hello Sister,
Yes Furoshiki is a a very cute way of wrapping and carri-on things, here i saw it every day, for them more than a craft or a fancy way of packing things it is just and habit, you can see the guys going to work with their lunchs wrapping that way, women, kids, old people use ir practicly for everything every day it is cute.
So, about wrapping i like hard boxes with a rainbow cross bow.
Take care
That book sounds great! I love the idea of reusing the wrapping. I like to sew a simple drawstring bag to put a gift in. Then the bag can either be reused as gift wrap or to put stuff in. I use pretty upholstery samples or other fancy scraps.
I'm a big fan of fabric gift wrap, my favorite is to make cloth napkins that they can keep and use again. Photos on blog
http://hippiestitch.blogspot.com/2009/03/green-…
I have used the two bottle furoshiki wrap for wine gifts at the holidays. I am wild about the furoshiki fabrics. I wish I had a local place to buy. I have seen some sites online, but I like to touch and feel before I buy. :-)
I've been eyeing Jennifer's FuroChic wraps.
I have a few furoshiki of my own and am looking into using some of my fabric I recently purchased in Japan to make my own furoshiki. I really like furoshiki because you don't have to use a separate bag for lunch, you can keep all of your lunch things together and it doubles as a napkin or place mat!
One of my favorite ways to wrap is to wrap ribbon around a thick, unique wrapping paper, and then stick a charm or letter on the ribbon before tying. I also like tying ribbon around opposing corners because it's very cute.
Like here: http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v77… or here: http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs… or here: http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs….
I like making sure that everything is wrapped, that way it's much more fun to open!
Cool-io! I always forget this is an option. Perhaps having the book will remind me?
Wow, how cool is that! Diane, you make me want to buy every book you review :)
My favourite gift-wrapping method is actually not much of a method and even less eco-friendly – mostly I just use lots of clear tape to try and keep the gift in the often too small piece of wrapping paper I have cut. So Furoshiki is definately something I should look into, both for ecological and aesthetical reasons…
Huge thanks for the giveaway!
Like others I often use plain brown paper which can be stamped or decorated. One favorite technique is to let my toddler daughter make handprints on the paper with acrylic craft paint (washable!) … fun for her, and fun for the recipient! Thanks for the giveaway!
Looks like a wonderful book and a great way to wrap gifts sans all the gift wrap waste. I wonder if there are projects for what you can do with the cloth after you receive the gift? I love all ideas regarding unique ways to gift wrap items, especially when a little origami is involved, adding pretty folds and such. My default wrapping method is just with kraft paper and twine…plus a special tie/decoration to top it off!
I haven't tried fabric wrapping…yet. I'm still using the usual wrapping paper with lots of tape. I guess it's time to upgrade.
As an avid crocheter, I like to incorporate yarn into gift wrapping. For example, I use a row of chain stitches in place of a ribbon. This book looks amazing!
The book looks incredible! One of my favorite wrapping techniques is to layer tissue paper around a solid color wrapping paper and tie it up with ribbon. :)
When I started dating DH, he wrapped all his presents with the comics from the Sunday paper. It's a tried and true method. He still does it too!
Oooh, this looks very cool! I don't really have any creative gift-wrapping methods; I usually just use wrapping paper.
I was just talking with Ethel about this at the Knittin' Kitten yesterday! Instead of using a bag, we just folded our loot up in the fabric 'hobo' style. Luckily Violet thought this was novel enough to make up for not getting a purple bag. :)
The book looks great, and the fabrics divine!
A lot of my wrapping involves creatively reusing wrapping paper. It involves folding and tucking and pleating paper around the gift to hide any bare patches / bits of tape / big crinkles. Lots of fun!
Whenever I make a baby quilt, I wrap it in a flannel receiving blanket (45 x 45, serged) and tie it with ribbons. The moms-to-be love getting two gifts in one!
There is just something about the simplicity of brown craft paper with crisp corners and cute ribbon that I love! Inexpensive, classic, and beautiful!
I like to recycle materials that I have on hand as much as possible. I don't know if you remember, but last year I made nifty mailers out of gift totes: http://www.geekxnerd.com/2008/12/advent-day-9-t….
This book looks super cool!
I only recently decided to try fabric wrapping, but I didn't tie my fabric, I folded it much in the same way you would use wrapping paper and then I put pins in it. However, I thought about the practicality of having pins that may poke someone, so I went ahead and taped over the pins anyway. I hope it was slightly more personal to the couple as I thought about their wedding colors when chosing fabric from my stash. The size of gifts also lended themselves to fat quarters.
I make buttons, so to wrap those I take tinfoil chocolate wrappers in pretty colors and put them around the pins.
One of my favorite fabric stores puts your purchases in small brown bags with handles. I like to reuse the bags by ironing on an appropriate applique over the store logo.
can you stand it? love that tissue box.
my favorite would have to be using brown paper bags (trader joe's), cutting them open so they lie flat, then stamping the blank side with lots of painted stamps. small packages get small stamps, big ones get big stamps. then, use that as wrapping paper.
Love these ideas. Our family has always used recycled materials for gift wrapping.
I love to wrap gifts in unusual things. My dad is an old-time cowboy who still uses bandanas/handkerchiefs. At Christmas I always buy him several packages & then use them to wrap his stocking stuffer gifts with them – dual duty presents!
Thanks for the chance to win this great book.
Oooh, what a beautiful book! We lived in Japan for a few years and we could buy fabrics just for this purpose. “Furoshiki,” pronounced “fur-OH-shkee.” I only learned the simplest folds. These look wonderful.
I've been wrapping little boxes with origami paper. I spoze that's my current favorite wrapping method.
I would love to learn to use fabric for wrapping! Thanks for a chance at the book & fabric.
I think my favorite wrapping has been the craft paper that we decorated ourselves. I've had my kids place their handprints all over it. We've made our own foam stamps and put Christmas patterns on it, and we've even used the “Rainbow Art” set to make rainbow inspired paper.
I'm still using the wrapping paper method. I would love this book and some fabric to start a new tradition. Its so beautiful.
I love that, I went to Japan last year and they have stores all over that sell perfectly sized fabric for just this. I so regret not bringing home more, but I still had to pay my mortgage. Would LOVE this book!
One of my many hobbies is Chinese Painting. I always have plenty of practice sheets to include in my gift wrapping. The rice paper makes great packing material, and the nearly-finished paintings make great outer wrapping. The only issue is that sometimes the wrapping finds its way into a picture frame as an extra gift, so I have to be careful that it's good enough to hang on someone's wall.
I usually wrap my gifts in previously received gift bags. I never buy any of them and I use the silk paper to decorate and cover lightly the gift.
I loved the tissue-box cover; usualy, the tissue-boxes made here [i live in Brazil] are awful, so i hide them in the drawer. With this furoshiki, I won't need to hide them anymore.. ahahah
This is messy but kinda fun. I use a solid color as the base just regular wrapping paper. Then I put confetti on top, something bright and fun. Finally I then wrap a layer of loose clear wrap over it. So the confetti is between the two layers. I dont put too much confetti just a little.
A perfect reason to visit the Knittin Kitten! They have tons of “gift wrap”!
That is the thing I was looking for and it’s impossible to find it here so… maybe this time random.org will like me ;)
I like to use gift bags–or reuse one’s I’ve been given or that I’ve gotten at garage sales or thrift stores. Wrapping gifts with fabric looks like a fun use for some of my stash. Thanks for the opportunity to win.
oooh I love the shirt one, and all of them! Pete and I have been reusing the same silly dollar store gift bags for each other's gifts for years, and for everyone else I usually end up using newspaper, magazine pages, or brown paper bags. Sometimes I tie yarn around the gifts at least… I need to be more creative with my wrapping!
My goodness. When I was a kid living in Japan I used to carry my books to school wrapped in a furoshiki. It was really handy. I could get a lot in there; it had a comfortable handle to carry it by; fit on the back of my bike under the spring thingy; and when you took your books out it wadded up and went in your coat pocket. Now that I live in the States, no one even seems to know the word. I'm definitely going to have to get this book with all the clever different wrappings. We just used a sturdy square scarf and tied it diagonally across each way. Brings back the “good ol' days!”
My goodness. When I was a kid living in Japan I used to carry my books to school wrapped in a furoshiki. It was really handy. I could get a lot in there; it had a comfortable handle to carry it by; fit on the back of my bike under the spring thingy; and when you took your books out it wadded up and went in your coat pocket. Now that I live in the States, no one even seems to know the word. I'm definitely going to have to get this book with all the clever different wrappings. We just used a sturdy square scarf and tied it diagonally across each way. Brings back the “good ol' days!”