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| "C is for Cookie that you will bake for me" |
Every year after Thanksgiving I go out and buy materials to wrap my gifts for Christmas and Festivus. Usually there is a design theme in my gift wrapping. This year, stocking stuffers and gifts to friends were wrapped in metallics, and gifts to family were wrapped in earth tones with twine and burlap accents. By the end of the holidays I am usually, and very conveniently, all out of those materials, which means I get to start fresh next holiday season. This calendar year I wanted to do something creative when it came to birthday present wrapping. My brother recently got into baking, cookies mostly, so he asked if he could have an apron for his birthday. After picking one up from Target I started thinking about how I would wrap it. I checked Twitter and toward the top of my feed was a post from Cookie Monster. And this is the reason brother's birthday present was wrapped in the likes of Cookie Monster. I knew immediately that I wanted the wrapping to have that raggedy Cookie Monster look and texture, so I purchased blue streamers from Deals and went home to work with my purchases, scissors, tape, a glue stick, brown packing paper.
First I lit my Lilac Blossoms Yankee Candle to provide a sweet spring aroma. Also, the power was out so it provided heat.
To start, I wrapped the gift in the brown package paper. This would provide a base to create Cookie Monster's fur.
I wrapped the entire package in the streamers the way we used to wrap each other in toilet paper at my Halloween parties in the 90s. If you do this craft, start with the smaller ends and glue as you go.
The best way to get a fur like texture out of this paper is to cut the paper into fringe, similar to piñatas. To do this I wrapped the streamer around the package once horizontally to measure, then I cut the streamer and forty other streamers to be the same length. I then layered them in groups of ten and made small cuts about 3/4 the way across to create the fringe effect.
I then wrapped the pieces around the box and glued the uncut ends in place. I repeated this step one streamer at a time from the bottom working upwards.
I printed an outline of Cookie Monster’s eyes and mouth and gently applied them to the fur layer with glue.
The best part with decorative packaging is that it doubles as a party decoration. I can imagine a pile of presents that are decked out like Elmo, Big Bird, Abby Cadabby, and Two-Headed Monster. Part of me worried that my brother would like the wrapping more than the gift itself, but thankfully he was happy with both. He was definitely surprised to see our favorite Sesame Street resident on the table wishing him a happy 25th Birthday.
