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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
