Boy Gifts

Having three boys we are often buying and wrapping gifts for other boys. Up until about 2nd grade it was common to be invited to girl parties too, but the boys are being invited to fewer and fewer of them and the division of princesses and Lego’s is taking place.

Especially as Owen and his friends get older they are less and less inclined to appreciate anything pretty. They are drawn to simple, manly and rough. When wrapping gifts I have to restrain myself from trying to impress…(who…the kid’s mom maybe?)…with pretty paper, bags, bows, tissue etc. It’s not for a girl, too pretty and you just embarrass the birthday boy and your own poor son who has to carry the tissue monstrosity into the party. While I don’t suggest wrapping gifts in sand paper or anything, I do think there are ways to man-up the gift wrapping.

Today was another one of those parties. Our neighbor boy is turning 10 this week and he and Owen are good friends. We picked out a DS game we’re pretty sure he doesn’t have and I got it all ready to gift. In the process I thought, “I’ll bet I’m not the only one who deals with this not so pretty wrapping issue.”

So I thought I’d blog my simple solution.

This is partially simple because I had everything already. I like to make creative use of what I already have, but I also try to have what I need to be creative. I love this green wrapping paper because it works for EVERYTHING. I can accessorize it in red for Christmas, lavender at Easter, pink for a baby girl shower, yellow for gender neutral baby showers, white for a wedding or blue, brown, black or gray for a boy’s birthday.

I also save tissue paper and for this gift I simply cut off a narrow strip and wrapped it around the middle of the gift. I then tied it in blue cotton yarn/twine and it looked great.

I like a gift to look thoughtful as well as be thoughtful. Sometimes the way you wrap a gift can add exclusivity to something that wasn’t all that personal, add value to something simple and bring distinction to something that was otherwise general.

To personalize this for our neighbor boy I found a font (Arial Black), printed and cut out a thick “B” (his first initial) and traced it onto some coordinating scrapbook paper (I could have printed this directly onto the paper as it was an 8.5×11 sheet…but I didn’t think of that now did I?), I placed the pattern on a fold I creased in the paper so that it would open like a card, cut it out and had Owen write a simple birthday message inside. The hardest part was cutting it out, and I only did the little holes on one side, but it didn’t take long and I think even a 10 year old boy will appreciate the way it looks.