I love wrapping gifts. Maybe it's my Type A personality shining through, but I enjoy the precision of it. The folds, the corners, the geometry.... But I hate store-bought gift-wrap. I know it's selfish, but I want MY gifts to stand out from the crowd, to be commented on, to be the first to get opened. The best way to achieve this is to customize the gift wrap. Below I've listed a few ideas to send your gift straight to the head of the class. One thing to keep in mind regardless of the style you choose: it's much easier to wrap something that's in a box, and it looks better too.

1. NATURAL One of my favourite styles of wrapping is what I call the natural look.

What you'll need:
- Plain brown craft paper; this is usually sold in rolls at craft stores or at the post office - if your gift is small enough, you can recycle brown paper shopping bags
- Raffia; I like to use the natural-coloured kind
- Dried flowers; I tend to use straw flowers
- Glue gun, or other clear-drying glue (not a glue stick)
- Tape
- Scissors

Instructions:
- Wrap the gift with the brown craft paper
- Tie the gift with raffia the same way you would normally tie it with ribbon
- Cut several pieces of raffia several inches in length; use these to add more interest to the top of the gift
- Tie the cut pieces of raffia around the original knot you tied in it (where you would normally stick a big bow)
- Add the flowers; if they still have stems it may be possible to thread them through your raffia bow, however, I prefer to glue the flowers down so they don't fall off if you're using a glue gun be sure to rest it on newspaper to catch the drips, and as always, be careful - it's hot!

2. NEWSPAPER A good last minute gift-wrapping technique is to use newspaper. You can use the comics, the stock pages, or the classifieds, or the personals. Tie it with twine, just the way it arrives on your doorstep.

3. RANSOM DEMAND Use plain brown craft paper to wrap your gift. Cut letters out of the newspaper and magazines to spell the recipients name, "Happy Birthday", or whatever else you want to say.

4. TIN FOIL Don't act like you've never used it.

5. PHOTOCOPIES Make photocopies of a picture that reflects the personality of the recipient. It could be their favourite movie star, their favourite food, or their favourite car. Cut out the images and set one aside. Wrap the gift in plain white or coloured paper, then decoupage the photocopied images onto it. Punch a hole in the image you saved, and use it as a gift tag.

6. TAKEOUT FOOD Lots of party stores sell cardboard takeout-food containers in several sizes. Around Christmas you can usually get them in red or green, or with Christmas themed designs. They're inexpensive, and they're great for wrapping small gifts, or filled with chocolates.

7. STAMPS or STENCILS Wrap the gift in plain paper, and use stamps or stencils to create a pattern. If you don't want to buy stamps or stencils. you can always use that tried-and-true grade three method of cutting simple shapes into the end of a potato and using that as your stamp.

8. MAPS I can't fold a map back to its original shape to save my life, thus it gives me certain cathartic pleasure to cut it up and use it for something else. Maps make great gift-wrap for going away presents.

9. SPECIALTY PAPERS Consider using origami or handmade Japanese paper to wrap a gift. Vellum also looks great as an overlay over plain coloured paper.