Hand-stamped Christmas wrap!

How are you doing with your holiday shopping, are you on track? I’m doing pretty well with my lists, so I’ve turned my mind to giftwrap; handmade wrap is something Harry and I love doing each year – remember our first experiments with kraft paper wrapping in 2015 (below)?

And then our fir-branch brushstroke paper and pipe-cleaner sprigs from 2019;

This year, we bought a couple of rolls of inexpensive brown paper and laid them out the length of the hallway, and began stamping and painting to create two designs; the first a wintery pine theme;

And the second, simple white doves and olive branches, made using an old car-washing sponge!

To make the fir-print paper, you’ll need:

Acrylic paint (I use Pebeo), in dark green, bright/metallic green, white, brown and copper
Lolly/popsicle sticks
Small paintbrush
Pencil rubber for stamping

I hand-painted the basic shape in dark green paint, then dipped the flat length of a wooden lolly stick in my bright green paint to create the lighter fir spines. When these dried, I used the rubber-tip of a pencil dipped in brown and then copper paint to stamp out nuts at the heart of each sprig. Here’s a close-up;

I used the same rubber-tip dipped in white paint for my snowflakes, and a bottle-cap for the bigger flakes. At large scale, they look lovely, and would also make gorgeous table-coverings for Christmas day.

For the dove print paper, you’ll need:

Large sponge – a used a car washing sponge I found in the shed
White, green and silver acrylic paint
Lolly/popsicle sticks
Marker pen for any accents you want to add

Draw a simple dove shape freehand on your sponge with marker pen, and carefully cut it out using either scissors or a craft knife. You’ll likely be left with some wing-shapes like mine below you can use to stamp out wings once the body is dry.

Pour some of your white paint onto a plate and rub your sponge body-shape in it, before stamping out across your paper. When that’s dry (because the paint layering effect is lovely), do the same with the wing. You can make the wings any angle, and you can add just one or two – I did one.

When that’s dry, dip your lolly stick into a tray of silver paint and stamp wing-spines along the tail piece and wing as shown below. You can also add eye definition, body feathers and beak detail with marker pens if you like, or simply leave as a more abstract design. I then stamped gold stars and hand-painted olive branches in the birds’ beaks.