Free & Creative DIY Christmas Gift Wrapping in 5 Minutes

When I started testing “a couple of” Christmas gift wrapping ideas using recycled brown paper and fresh foliage cuttings, I didn’t expect it to be a rabbit hole of such endless fun and possibilities!

Here’s part 2 of our … In part 1, we explored many creative variations of making beautiful Christmas gift wrapping with a few simple materials: recycled brown paper, green foliage, and twine.

In this part, we will be using the same mostly free materials, and create beautiful festive designs on our Christmas gift wrapping. You won’t believe how easy and fun these are to make!

In addition to adding extra excitements to the gifts, these unique gift packages will also make lovely decorations under a Christmas tree.

You can check out part 1 here: 7 best ideas, tips and tricks to create beautiful DIY gift wrapping with mostly free materials!

*Some resources in article are affiliate links. Full disclosure here.

Materials for our DIY Christmas gift wrapping:

  • Natural elements: cuttings from evergreen trees and shrubs such as boxwood, rosemary, eucalyptus, cedar, juniper, etc. Colorful berries like Holly, Firethorn, pepper tree, etc. Seed pods and pine cones are also great materials to create with.

IMPORTANT: avoid plant materials that may cause allergies or are poisonous, such as Oleander, poison oak, etc. If unsure, take a picture of a plant and ask your local nursery experts. The popular ones mentioned above are all safe.

Helpful tip: Most of the fresh cuttings will look nice for 3 to 7 days without water. But you can collect them and put them in a vase with water, which will make them last longer, until you are ready to use them.

Once you have wrapped some gifts with brown paper and gathered some materials from nature, let’s look at how to create some wonderful festive designs with them!

1 . Mini Christmas tree gift wrapping

It is ridiculously easy to make a lovely mini Christmas tree design on your gift wrapping. Take a small piece of cutting from a conifer tree, like cypress or juniper, which is already shaped like a Christmas tree.

Trim it to fit the gift package, and use hot glue to glue it in place. I added a small paper cut star on top to make it even more festive.

2. Snowy tree Christmas gift wrapping

This is a super fun variation of the mini Christmas tree above. Here we used a toothbrush and some white paint to create a snow flurry effect.

You can also use snowy pinecones. These snow covered pine cones are super easy to make, tutorial here.

winter wonderland wedding style white DIY snow covered pine cones & branches

3- minute DIYsnow covered pine cones in 3 ways!

Who doesn’t love a white winter wonderland? The snowy tree is created the same way as the snow covered pinecones above.

3. Boxwood wreath Christmas gift wrapping

Everyone loves Boxwood wreaths! While it takes some work to make a big wreath, this adorable mini boxwood wreath takes only a few minutes to make.

Take 10 to 15 small 2 inch long boxwood cuttings. Draw a circle at the center of the box as a guide. Glue the boxwood cuttings along the circle to complete the wreath.

You can add a mini leaf garland at top, and a fun DIY 3d paper ribbon with a hand written message at the bottom.

Cut a thin strip of paper, fold it like shown in the photo below. Write a message in the center part, put a little glue on each end of the paper ribbon, and glue it onto the gift wrap.

4. Conifer wreath Christmas gift wrapping

Conifer wreaths are such timeless decorations for the holiday season.

You can make a mini wreath from conifer cuttings. This one is made from a small sprig of cypress, using the same gluing process as the boxwood wreath above.

I have found that among the conifers, fir (like Balsam Fir tree) cuttings don’t last as long as the juniper, cedar and cypress cuttings. Something to keep in mind if you plan to make these ahead.

The paper ribbon is glued at the center point. We used this 48 lb thickness hemp twine here to create an interesting design on the mini conifer wreath gift wrap.

Want more gift wrapping ideas? You can check out part 1 here: 7 best ideas, tips and tricks to create beautiful DIY gift wrapping with mostly free materials!

Another beautiful use of branches and pine cones you may love : snowy tree DIY winter and Christmas table decorations for almost free!

wrap burlap around tin can container with snowy tree winter & Christmas DIY table decoration

Snowy tree DIY winter and Christmas table decorations .

Happy creating! If you tried any of these ideas, upload a picture under our pins on pinterest. We would love to see it!

9 Comments

  1. Hi! These ideas are lovely! I’m curious how long those plant cuttings will last. How close to giving the gift would you recommend making theme?

    • hi ashley! if you keep them in a cool dark place, they can last at least 3-4 days. it’s also a good idea to test a few cuttings that you plant to use, as they vary a lot, cedar lasts much longer than pine, for example. 🙂

  2. Thank you for these great DIY Christmas gift wrapping ideas, using recycled paper and natural materials! Look forward to trying them this holiday season!

  3. Hi!
    I just wanted to let you know that I absolutely loved your craft and I featured it on my blog, Sincerelyrox.com. It’s, 50 amazing Christmas DIY’s since it’s Christmas in July (: I hope you don’t mind and I wish you a great weekend! Thank you!

    Roxanna

  4. I wouldn’t even want to unwrap these gifts they are too stunning! Great idea for creative gift wrapping I love it!

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