Wrapping without ribbon

Without a stock of wrapping supplies at my apartment in Savannah, I was in a pinch and had to use what was at my disposal to wrap up a little gift for a birthday party. A few days ago Jessica at How About Orange (http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2008/12/paper-flower-ornaments.html) posted a crafty way to make ornaments using strips of paper and a stapler so I thought I'd give that a whirl in hopes of dressing up the kraft paper brown box from the bakery. I didn't even have a stapler, so I went to the next better thing...my Crop-a-dile. Scrapbook supplies to the rescue! One rivit later and I was in business making a lovely green vellum paper flower base. Although the flower was pretty just by itself, it needed a little something extra to turn it into a gift topper so I improvised with some more loops, popped in a brad, fluffed the loops up in a circles and used some glue dots to adhered the new top to the flower bottom and VOILA! one pretty box topper. All in all, it took two sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper (different colors were used, otherwise one sheet would have worked), a paper trimmer to make 1/2" strips, two brads (or rivits), some double stick tape, a few glue dots and thrity minutes.



What was inside this handmade wrapping box? Cupcakes, of course! I wanted to thank some friends for all the "sweet" things they do.