M&S Christmas Wrapping – A guide to wrapping unusual shaped gifts!

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be invited by the team at Marks and Spencer for a festive evening in the heart of London, where myself and a group of other bloggers were asked to creatively wrap over 150 gifts for children and parents staying Great Ormond Street Hospital over the Christmas period – sounded like the perfect festive evening for the run up to Christmas, plus it was for a great cause too – I couldn’t wait to go.

So, on the night of the event I took the train up to London and made my way across the big city – I arrived at the most beautiful house in Soho and it was like walking into a Winter Wonderland. With Christmas tunes, twinkly lights, decorations and the scent of spice in the air, it felt like Christmas Day from the moment I walked through the door. Before the Christmas workshop began, I had the chance to get to know the other bloggers over fizz, Christmas nibbles, as well as a bowl of festive percy pigs – of course!

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not great at wrapping presents. If the gift is a square or rectangle, I can get by. However when the gift is of an unusual shape, my wrapping may have been done by a six year old – think a sticky mess of sellotape and gaps in the paper, that’ll be about right.

Our wrapping workshop begun with a talk from Great Ormond Street Hospital on what the presents mean to them and then moved onto some wrapping tips by the pro’s – we also had a sneak peek at the new Marks & Spencer’s gift wrapping collection for this year – the designs are just beautiful!

The three main techniques we learned on the night were:

• DIY Gift Wrap Giftbag
• Gift Wrapping with pleats
• Gift Wrapping with handy card slot

So, we got going and turned the beautiful house into gift wrapping carnage! It was like Santa’s workshop, with bloggers busily wrapping on every table, chair and even spreading across the floor. Soon, the piles of toys and gifts for the children of Great Ormond Street Hospital had turned into a piles of shiny presents in their beautiful wrapping paper, all ready to go and make someones day.

After the event, the team at Marks and Spencer challenged us to try our hand at wrapping our presents, using some of the tips we learned on the day. So I got on the M&S website and started my christmas shopping, buying this sweet Darth Vader Bath Foam for Vee (she’ll love this!) and an Orange and Ginger Bath and Body Set for a family friend. Both quite tricky shapes that would usually have thrown me, but armed with my new techniques, I was ready! 🙂

This year I’ve chosen to wrap all my presents using the Marks and Spencer’s Hollywood Rose Gold gift wrap, with matching tags and ribbons. So, my first step was to get everything ready to wrap – this includes a large flat space, pair of scissors, sellotape – plus, the essentials for wrapping – a mince pie and Christmas tunes.

I have decided to use the ‘DIY Gift Bag’ technique, which involves creating a cute pouch for your item, meaning there are no awkward shapes to wrap around – instead you end up with a gift bag that can fit anything. It’s a real pro trick as it looks fabulous too. Here is how I got on…

Ta Da! Here are my finished presents! I found this technique super easy to do and this look makes all the presents look so neat under the tree too. If you’d like to give the wrapping techniques a go, Marks and Spencer’s have put together a full gift-wrapping guide, using some of our tips and tricks from the event, so give that a read to take some of the stress out of wrapping this year! I’ll be using this technique for years to come, as it really works with any gift of any size. I can’t wait to give the other techniques a go in the run up to Christmas too.

 

A big THANK YOU to Marks and Spencer for the lovely evening gift wrapping in your beautiful Winter Wonderland house and also for donating so many gifts to an amazing cause too! 

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