The Beauty of Burlap

Confessions of a former gift-wrap girl

One of my favorite jobs of all times was during Christmas break from college. As a temporary worker at the Frederick and Nelson department store in downtown Portland I was assigned to the gift wrap department, I was the only person there and I loved it! It made me feel like I was one of Santa’s elves.

Shoppers would come to my “workshop” with their bags of gifts and explain to me the necessary (and some unnecessary) details about the gifts and the recipients. The customer would go to lunch or continue shopping and I would do my best to make their gifts look beautiful and festive.

Maybe it’s those memories that inspire me to set up a wrapping station each year. I usually pack the components in baskets, so people can take the “kit” with them to wrap their gifts in privacy. 

My kit contains the usual — a variety of ribbons, papers and tools. But, I want to share with you 2 items, which I never had in my festive workshop at Frederick and Nelson, that really make a difference in my current gift-wrapping land.

I covered this over sized box with a sheet of kraft paper, then tied it up with a giant burlap bow, accented with a golden cord.

 

I didn’t have a box to fit these bottles of green fig hand soap and lotion from Antica Farmacista, so I put a piece of burlap over the tops of the bottles, then cut a square of burlap which I pulled up and around the bottles. 

I gathered the burlap and secured it with a piece of red mohair twine.  

The other thing that I really LOVE to have in my kit is plenty of rolls of double sided tape.

Using this tape, my hemmed edges

  

I don’t know where to tell you to find a baguette basket like this (your local boulangerie??)– but if you happen to come across one, they are great for storing and toting around rolls of wrapping paper.