dream catcher and pom pom gift wrap ideas

At work I was recently given the fun project of planning/making our holiday gifts for everyone that we've worked with over the past year. I wanted to do something that felt a bit more winter than straight up holiday, so I stuck to a neutral color palette with pops of gold and red. To make them a bit more unique I had the idea to play around and do fun things with the yarn. The first result is dream catcher inspired, and the second features a fun wintery pom pom!

What You'll Need:

Feathers

Gold Leaf Kit

Paper Bag Wrapping Paper

Cream Colored Yarn

8" x 8" x 3.5" Gift Box

Masking Tape

Scissors

Gold Leafing Directions:

1. Dip the tips of your feathers in the gold leaf adhesive and let dry for a couple minutes.

2. Fold a small piece of gold foil around the tip of the feather until it is nicely wrapped.

3. After a few minutes hold the feather tight to the ground and press the leaf into the feather using a paint brush.

4. After 20 minutes of so, you can use the sealer if you want to. It's mostly to prevent tarnishing for things that are meant to last a while, so I did not use it.

Wrapping The Box:

It may seem crazy to give directions here, but wrapping is actually an art that takes some practice. Here are some good things to know & steps to take.

1. When you first wrap the paper around your box, you want to get it as tight as possible.

2. Next, fold the paper into a triangle, making a crease along the outer edge of the box. 

3. Fold along your previous crease to make the triangle lay flat against the box. Make another crease right at the bottom, holding that triangle tight to your gift.

4. After making the creases on both sides, fold over the edge of your flap. 

5. Cut a piece of tape with scissors so that it is straight, fold the flap up, and stick. 

*Tip: when cutting your wrapping paper to size, you want to have about 1.5" of excess on the sides. It is important to make sure that you don't have too much because that is where you'll run into sloppy-looking presents. 

Dream Catcher Yarn:

1. Taking 5 yards of yarn, tie the string around your gift like you would normally in a criss-cross "t" shape. You want where the yarn intersects to be further to one side, and not in the middle.

2. After tying a knot, take the yarn and tie it at 1"-3" intervals around the entire string. Stop a couple of inches right before you get to the final knot.

3. Taking the tale of the yarn that is left, you want to string it through the loops that you've made making a zig zag shape. You really can't mess up here, just loop and pull making a spiderweb effect. At certain points you may want to knot it around the loop to hold it in a certain place.

Making Pom Poms:

1. Cut two same size circles out of cardboard. Make a slit going into the center and cut out the center as well. 

2. Tie your yarn around the end, and proceed to wrap generously around the cardboard. 

3. Once you reach the end, tie off your string. 

4. Taking your scissors, cut down the center, in between the two pieces of cardboard. After you've cut 2/3 of the way around take another string and start to weasel it between the cardboard pieces to tie off around the center of your strings. 

5. Once you've cut all the way around, tie the string around the center, leaving the tails long so that you can attach it to your gift. Fluff the yarn to get your pom pom.

Fan Yarn & Attaching the Pom Pom:

1. Taking 4.5 yards of string, tie around the package once and knot, leaving one end extremely long and the other short.

2. Taking the long end, wrap the yarn around the gift to the front and tie a knot in the center.

3. Return the yarn to the back, and tie a knot around your first. Continue wrapping & tying knots at the center until you've done so four times. End at the back, tie a double knot, and trim excess.

4. Taking the two long strings of your pom pom, tie the pom pom around the center knot on the front of your package.

5. I suggest double knotting, and then trim your strings so that they are the same length as the rest of your pom pom strings.

Happy holidays everyone!