How To Gift Wrap An Afghan

This post is the response to a repeated request from family, friends and fantastic blog readers.  I firmly believe that half the fun of gift-giving is in the gift wrapping.  Presentation counts for a lot...and blankets can be tricky to wrap.

Crisp wrapping paper + soft blanket corners = a frustrating time.

Solution: head to the dollar store or the mill end store and wrap it up like this:

A dollar store table cloth, a roll of satin-y dollar store ribbon, and a dollar store glittery butterfly clip.

...or like this:

One metre of mill-end fabric, 1.5 metres of gros-grain ribbon, and a dollar store Christmas tree decoration.

Here's the step-by-step breakdown from my most recent wedding afghan.  This one includes an outer layer of cellophane wrap, which I included to keep the snowflakes out. ;)  The wrapping ended up being Christmas-ier than I intended, but I guess I was just in the holiday spirit. ;)


1.  Roll out the entire roll of cellophane gift wrap.  (Yes, you can get it at the dollar store.)

2.  Lay the tablecloth or fabric wrapping down over the cellophane and lay the afghan on top.  (If the afghan is larger than the table cloth, I recommend folding it in half before you keep wrapping.)

3.  Fold in the excess edges of the table cloth on either side.

4.  Holding both the tablecloth and afghan together, fold in to the middle.  Both sides will be folded in, so it's helpful to think about folding in thirds.

4.  The top and bottom ends of the afghan/table cloth combination are still loose, like this:

5.  (Here's where I seem to have missed a photo.)  Fold in the other side of the afghan and table cloth, holding both together.  You should now be looking at a big long rectangle of tablecloth with no afghan visible.

6.  Wrap the cellophane around and secure with clear tape.  (I needed an extra set of hands to do this part.)

7.  Fold in the top and bottom overhanging ends of table cloth and secure with a bit of tape.

8.  Fold in both ends of the wrapped "tube" to meet near the middle.  (Leave a bit of a gap, as shown in the picture, to make the final folding step easier.)

9.  Make one final "fold," right along the gap from step 8.

10.  Secure your wrap job with ribbon.  (Sometimes extra hands are helpful at this point, too!)

11.   Add a bit of bling to the top of your package.  :)

These bells were Christmas decorations that came in a package of 12 from the dollar store.

12.  Take a photo of your wrap job (...because I totally want to see it).





p.s.  Apparently this is the 50th post on my blog.  I guess I'm officially a blogger now.  I think I'll celebrate with another cup of coffee before I return to my New Years organizing blitz.