"Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness."-Richard Bach

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If I were rich I would totally pull a Candy Spelling and build a giftwrapping room in my mansion. Except unlike Candy Spelling, my house would have some class and it would be in the south of France. It would be an understatement if I were to say that I love giftwrapping more than life itself. I love everything about it… The wrapping paper, the ribbon, the tape, the tissue, the gift cards everything! If I do say so myself I am a giftwrapping expert. My very first real job in the entire world when I was 18 years old was at Ralph Lauren Beverly Hills. My job? Gift wrapper! So obviously, I was trained by the very best. :-)

 

 

Grace and I have been known to during the holidays to watch giftwrapping competitions. Swear. She would obviously never do this with me now. She would rather die. We did this when invisible tape first came out and it was all the rage. At my antique shop, Circa, we were dedicated to giftwrapping. Our signature giftwrapping was black lacquered paper, a fig green and black striped ribbon and a wax seal. For the holidays I would add a sublime black “Joyeux Noël” ribbon. Gorge. There is a shop in Santa Barbara called Upstairs at Pierre Lafond. Their giftwrap was fantastic. Kraft paper, colorful Santa Barbara colored ribbon and always five sprigs of dried lavender. Whenever we would be going to a party, I would make my husband go upstairs to the shop to buy a hostess gift. He would say, “What do you want me to buy?” I would say, “I don’t care, just get it gift wrapped!” My other favorite giftwrap is from Assouline Publishing. They use white glossy paper with an ox blood wax seal. Minimal and chic.

 

Giftwrap paper is almost becoming like wallpaper. There are so many choices, nowadays. Super clever choices. My favorite companies right now for giftwrapping paper are Rifle Paper Co., John Derian, Norman’s Printery and Mr Boddington's Studio. Look look look…
 

There is a great video on the Quintessence blog with SusannaSalk interviewing John Derian about all of his fabulous giftwrapping papers! Watch it HERE.

 Ribbon, ribbon, ribbon! The icing on the cake. This is where you can get rather creative. The company I always turn to for ribbon is called Midori. Take a look at their ribbon and some other clever choices…

 

Wax seals can go both ways. You can do it by hand by melting the wax and using your own stamp. Nowadays you can use a hot glue gun with colored wax to speed up the process. That’s cool, but if you are doing a lot of gifts and you don’t have time to individually melt each seal by hand there is a solution! Custom-made wax seal stickers! They are exactly like the real thing. We used these for our store and I thought they were genius. The company is called Waxseals.com

 

Do you remember when all we had was ugly visible scotch tape to tape up the packages? So 1970s! Well thank God for modern-day technology because life is better now. Now we have invisible tape, Japanese Washi tape and printed tape. A great company for this is called Cute Tape. Take a look.

 

The best advice I can give for giftwrapping is to get organized. Get all your papers together, use the proper scissors, have lots of tape handy etc. Supplies are everything. Check out this Martha Stewart giftwrapping hutch from Home Depot. Not bad. I like the green color that it comes in. I would buy this only if I couldn’t afford my custom giftwrapping room of course.

 

 

 

 

I definitely recommend checking out my Have Some Decorum Giftwrapping Pinterest board HERE and also my Have Some Decorum Wrapping Paper And Supplies Pinterest board HERE. There are some great ideas and great sources to get ready for the upcoming holidays! In the spirit of my new Parisian life, I think this year for Christmas, I will do an artist/painter theme for all of the gifts. Look look look.

 

So that’s it for The Art of Entertaining for now. Let’s get back to interior decorating and then let’s focus on the fall season and the holidays.

*Something you don’t know about me? I have never done drugs. Never even experimented. Not once. Not ever. Not in high school, not in college, not at any reggae concert, never ever ever. I think I deserve a medal for this because I grew up in Malibu for God’s sake! I could legally get a prescription for marijuana but I refuse to because I’m scared of marijuana. I’m scared of all drugs. Including my own medication, NyQuil, aspirin, anything over-the-counter and all prescriptions. My husband tricks me/drugs me without my knowledge to get me to take my medicine. I will say to him, “Why does this yogurt taste funny?” He always feigns innocence but I know. I know the truth. My father always accuses me of doing drugs. Swear to God. We were in Hawaii a few years ago after I was diagnosed with ALS and at the serene oceanfront lunch table he says to me, “Ellie, are you still doing drugs?”

A toute!