Wrapping it All Up

Welcome to another week of class at Santa’s School of Wonders! I am Professor Ellie Elf, a teacher at our school for elves. I admit, I must look funny today with paint all over my clothes! Getting messy is just part of the fun in our art class. I hope you will join us elves today as we make a little mess creating our own wrapping paper.

I get all goose-bumpy just thinking about seeing presents wrapped up and under a tree. When a present is decorated, it just seems nicer (and, it’s pretty exciting to take the wrapping off, too!). Painting your own paper shows someone that you care and makes that person happy at the same time. After all, no present anywhere will have paper like yours. We elves loving making paper – it lets us turn our presents into our own works of art.

For this project, you will probably need a little help from an adult. This can be such a messy project! Ask your adult helper to go over these instructions so that you can have all the supplies you need. Here’s what to do to make your own paper:

1. To get started, pick out paper for wrapping the present, like newspaper, paper from a paper bag, or even pieces of construction paper taped together. Any type of paper you want to use should be fine.
2. Ask an adult to help you make some homemade stamps. You can make a potato stamp by taking a half of a potato, pressing in a cookie cutter, and then having your adult helper cut around the cookie cutter shape. Slide the cookie cutter off the potato and you’ll have a stamp to use! You can also use other vegetables for stamps. A half an apple makes a pretty apple shape and a half a carrot is great for making polka dots. (Can you think of other fun items to use as stamps? You can try those too!)
3. Dip your stamps in nontoxic paint, tap them a little to get off the extra paint, and then press them against the paper to create a design.
4. If you would like to add stripes, you can put a toy car in the paint, and then drive it around the paper. Vroom!
5. Let the paper dry well before you use it to wrap the present. Once it is dried, you can use a marker or crayons to add even more designs.

There are many ways you can decorate your paper. If you do not have enough time to paint, you can decorate it just by drawing pictures, putting on your favorite stickers or by gluing decorations on after you’ve wrapped a present (I once glued buttons all over a gift – it was so pretty).

I hope you enjoy making your own wrapping paper. I know that whoever gets your gift will probably want to save your paper – it’s like getting a present on a present!

Check in with our school next week to help us solve the mystery of the empty classroom!