My Favorite Things // 01

Can you believe it’s already November? Seems like this year is starting to fly by, and you know what that means…Christmas is right around the corner! As much as I don’t want to start thinking about the end of the year already, or the winter weather that comes with it, I must say that I do love the Christmas season. So on that note, I’m super excited to bring you another collaboration with the super awesome people at Minted – and we’re going to talk about some of my favorite things. I’m not sure when that song from the Sound of Music became a Christmas song, but maybe it’s the brown paper packages and the snowflakes? In any case, a few of my favorite things include: buying gifts for people (one of the best parts of Christmas), wrapping presents (related), and calendars (totally unrelated and a little nerdy…yet true). Minted has some awesome calendars with plenty of customization options, and they’re prefect for holiday gifts!

So, you’ve picked out the perfect calendar (see above) for your friend, the art-lover. Now, here’s how to wrap it!

All you’ll need is some kraft paper or butcher paper, a white paint pen, scissors, pretty Christmas ribbon, a ruler, a pencil and an eraser! And some minor language skills…

First step is to cut a piece of kraft paper the size you’ll need for your gift wrapping purposes, then use the ruler and lightly make lines across your paper. Once you have the lines, just start writing with the paint pen – what you write is totally up to you! I decided to write the words “Merry Christmas” in three languages, English, Spanish and French, on my wrapping paper – since after all this is a travel lifestyle blog. We gotta get our multilingual on, right? Keep going until the whole paper is full of words! I alternated what language I started with each time, so that they ended up staggered across the paper. Also, I had to use two coats of paint pen to get a good solid white. Make sure you let it dry completely when you’re finished, then gently erase your pencil lines.

Then comes the wrapping! It takes a little trial and error of sliding your paper around so that when you flip it over, the writing looks how you want it to. Finally, make use of your festive ribbon to add some Christmas color! This is my kind of DIY – the super simple but looks super pretty kind.

And there you have it, brown paper packages tied up with ribbon, all ready for Christmas!

What are some of your favorite things about the Christmas season? Are you a plan-ahead-er or a last-minute-er?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and was sponsored by Minted; however the opinions expressed here are my own and not affected by my affiliate relationship with Minted, because that’s how I roll – my desire is to bring a high level of creative and unique content to this blog, so thank you for supporting the brands that help me make that possible.