Easy Rainbow Ribbon Gift Wrap Tutorial

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I'm 1) obsessed with beautiful gift wrap and packaging, and 2) trying to only use solid color papers and embellish for different events, in a (probably futile) attempt to curb my addiction to beautiful papers.  Sometimes I use pretty ribbons or balloons or natural materials.  Sometimes it's just plain paper or stamps.  For the My Little Pony birthday party, it was that most classic of birthday gift embellishments, inexpensive curling ribbon.

Plain white wrapping paper is so versatile, and made the perfect backdrop for the eye-popping rainbow ribbons.  Getting the ribbon to behave and stay in rainbow order...well, that took a little figuring out.

first, obviously, you need a rainbow of ribbons and a plainly wrapped package.  (Ooh, wouldn't light blue paper with clouds drawn on with white paint marker be adorable, too?)

Cut a length of ribbon from each spool, long enough to wrap around the package and leave extra length for curling.  If you're doing a bunch of packages, like I was, it's fastest to grab all of the ribbons in one hand, pull the length of the ribbon from all of them at the same time, then cut with scissors all at once.  It's quite fast, really.

Tie a knot in the middle of the gathered lengths of ribbon.  Tape the knot to the center of the wrapped package.  Once that knot has been secured in the center of the package, you can make the ribbon submit to rainbow order.  With more tape, of course.

Arrange the ribbon in ROYGBIV order, and tape the ribbon securely on the backside of the package.  One thing I learned the hard way, is that I couldn't do all six colors at once.  Hold two, maybe three, colors of ribbon in place at a time and tape.  Trying to do it all at once lead to enough cursing to make a pony blush (why do you think some of them are pink?).

Once the rainbow of ribbon has been taped in place, you can continue wrapping the ribbon around the present in the completely normal, usual way.

Curl the ends of the ribbon, and you're done!  I added inexpensive My Little Pony (ish) toys from the dollar store (2 to a pack!) to the center of the curled ribbon bow, but it looked fabulous with just the curled ribbon.  No need to add anything else.  

But of course you could add something else to the center...  a cute little name tag shaped like a cloud?  a little pot of gold?  So many fun possibilities!

Follow my Packaging Pinterest board to see all the other awesome gift wrapping ideas I find!