Painting Christmas gift wrapping paper

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Christmas is a time for giving and our family loved to go to the effort of painting Christmas gift wrapping paper. It’s so simple and children as young as toddler age can do it.

I was at the store the other day because we are slowly starting to turn our head to Christmas and I was absolutely floored by the price of wrapping paper. Some of the rolls were only 3 metres long and were up around the $6 mark. Is that just in Australia?

I couldn’t believe it and knew that we could paint our own Christmas gift wrapping paper, which would likely be a lot more appreciated than what I could buy at the store.

Recommended age: 2 years +
(Strict and active supervision is required at all times)

Painting Christmas gift wrapping paper

To get your child to paint their own wrapping paper, you will need :

Plain roll of paper
Paint (Christmas colours preferred)
Paint brushes or painting tools
Drop sheet

Task:

Roll out a large piece of paper on the drop cloth and ask your child to paint it. You might like to have them paint what Christmas means to them or add traditional Christmas images, but for little ones, allow them to be as creative as they like!

Here is a quick little video of what we got up to.

Boo (aged 3 years) had so much fun with this activity. She loved having the large space to paint and didn’t feel she needed more paints that what I was offering her.

As you can see, this activity is incredibly simple to set up and is stress free so you don’t have to worry too much about mess, especially if you have a drop mat under your paper. I also had a wet cloth on hand (as always) and we really didn’t have any issues with spills.

More reasons why I love this activity –

People really appreciate things that are handmade
It’s simple for little ones to do independently
It encourages creativity and developing a ‘have a go’ attitude
Simple to set up

Learning achieved from this activity –

boosting creativity
learning how colours can mix together
developing language skills through conversation
building excitement around Christmas
and more!

We have (finally) started to enjoy some warmer Melbourne sunshine and so I simply hung the large sheet of decorated paper on the washing line to dry. Of course if you are not experiencing warm temperatures over the Christmas season, you can simply keep it indoors to dry.

I’m sure you’d agree that people really so appreciate when something is handmade, especially when it’s done by a child. This hand painted Christmas wrapping paper is a gift in itself! Lets just say I’m so glad I didn’t spend the $6 for a roll of Christmas paper and chose to have Boo make it instead.

Would you like your presents wrapped in hand painted wrapping paper?