Women and Peace

The way that a gift is wrapped can be as special as the gift itself, and here they have elevated gift wrap to an art form. In addition to supplies, the store also has a wonderful selection of books, some of which focus on gift wrap.

Wrapping Tips:

1. Wrapping gifts requires a little practice and patience
2. Sometimes it’s nice to combine 2 different papers, i.e. newsprint with a gold wrapping paper, tie with a black ribbon. Or use two textures.
3. Brown craft paper works well, when finished off with a nice ribbon – or you could stamp or stencil it.
4. Having too much paper is almost as bad as having too little. You want to put your package in the middle and measure it out – leaving about 5 – 6 inches on either side.
5. Crease the sides, to remind yourself where the package begins and ends.
6. A glue gun sometimes works better that tape – a small amount goes a long way.
7. Wire ribbon is more expensive, but it works really well, and makes for easier bow making.
8. For a special touch, you might want to include some lines of poetry
9. Use scraps and make a collage with the beautiful pieces.

Some of the kinds of paper’s the store carries: The store carries papers from around the world. There are many different processes that papers are made from. Some are made out of cotton, some are synthetic.

Some have Kozo fibers. Kozo is a natural plant that’s grown in the Orient, and it’s a primary paper. They focused on this for the holiday season, but the main focus was on the color gold, and papers with texture.

A little history on Japanese gift wrapping:

In the 7th century, an ambassador was going from China to Japan. The packages he was bringing with him for gifts were wrapped with red and white cords. The cords symbolized that the gift had been purified spiritually. This tradition was adapted to modern rituals, i.e. gold and white cords are used for weddings.

Pleats are also a symbolic tradition in Japanese wrapping. An odd number of pleats are a sign of happiness, used for a festive positive event, and an even number of pleats symbolize mourning or death.