Because I live several states away from most of my family, I have to mail presents. We used to exchange Christmas and birthday presents with everyone. As our numbers grew, we lowered the number and decreased the expense of gifts by picking names among adults and children. Some families exchange birthday gifts and some don’t, but regardless, I have mailed more gifts than I can count at this point.

Because so many gifts were being exchanged for some years, I had plenty of opportunities to experiment with wrapping and packaging presents. I like to tailor the package to the person just as much as the gift. My goal is for the receiver to see a cohesive display of gifts from the moment they open the box that hopefully makes them smile and feel special.

One wrapped present that I was especially pleased with was the “bow-tie ribbon.”

Our friend is a snappy dresser, so I decided to make a “bow-tie ribbon” for his birthday package.

I used brown craft paper for the gift wrapping and had fabric left over from a Birthday Quilt Runner I made for a quilt guild contest (another story for another day– it ended badly) that I thought would make a festive looking tie.

I found wonderful directions and a pattern on the site Tie-a-Tie.net.  I measured the circumference of the box, which was 16 inches, so I made the pattern that length.

After a few tries of tying it this is how it looked! He loved it!

I also made one for my son- here is how it looked!