12 Days Of Wrapping: Color Blocking

Posted In: Living | Posted By: Anj

Today’s second dose of wrapping is all about color, but color in its most basic palette: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. Almost everything is available in these five simple colors. Like our present topper post, this is more of an idea than a brand new craft, and is an easy way to hack your way to dynamic, vibrant presents under your Christmas tree.

Materials:
- wrapped presents or boxes (we wrapped ours in white copy paper and construction paper)
- balloon animal balloons (the long skinny kind)
- electrical tape in red, yellow, green, and blue
- assorted pipe cleaners
- assorted pom poms
- glue

First, get your presents wrapped and ready for some color. Then, get your materials ready.

With the long balloons, simply tie in knots around your gift. The balloons will naturally stick up after being tied, giving them the look and shape of a bow.

For the electrical tape, simply stretch over the box in a pattern you like. Be warned: because electrical tape is elastic, don’t pull too hard when you create your pattern or it will create creases in your wrapping paper. And don't go too nuts with the tape - it's pretty difficult to rip by hand, so most of the unwrapping should still be left to the wrapping paper.

Next up is a burst of color using store-bought pom poms. Simply bunch them in a pattern you like and glue onto the gift using Washable Elmer’s Glue.

And for pipe cleaners, we just tied them in a knot and then made a bow. For the second, we tied them in a knot and curled the ends for a wilder look. We used hot glue to attach the pipe cleaner bows to the top of the wrapped presents. If you have more time, regular Elmer’s Glue will do just fine but we were in a rush!

How do you add a touch of color to your holiday packages? Send your tricks to and we’ll add them to our list!