I should probably be concentrating less on wrapping Christmas presents and more on actually buying them, but here’s another wrapping idea: stamped wrapping paper. It’s super easy and hardly takes any extra time, but it’s a nice personal touch that can be as simple or as elaborate as you want.

While I’ve seen instructions for stamping wrapping paper that are like, “And now, carve your stamp from a potato,” that sounds like a lot of time and energy to create a temporary stamp, so this tutorial uses pre-made stamps. But you don’t need to go out and buy a bunch of different stamping supplies; a simple alphabet set and black ink pad are all you need, and are super versatile. If you want more variety, a star, tree, or sprig of holly and gold and silver stamp pads are fun, too.

Stamped Wrapping Paper

Materials

Brown kraft wrapping paper
Black ink stamp pad
Alphabet stamp set

Steps

1. For the word-stamped gifts, I wrapped them and added the ribbon/twine, then I did the stamping. Just stamp the ink on the pad, then onto the paper. You want a hand-made look, so try not to stress about perfectly lining up the letters. If you really mess up, you can always take off the paper and start over.

2. For an allover pattern like this one, I stamped the paper before wrapping, let the ink dry for a few minutes, then wrapped up the gift.

P.S. Want more gift-wrapping ideas? Splatter-paint wrapping paper is really fun to make!