Creative gift wrapping ideas: tissue paper gift topper tutorials

Have you started your holiday gift wrapping yet? Or do you wait to do it all together after you have finished shopping? Personally, I have always loved the gift wrapping part of the holidays the best and try to get the majority of it done early so that the presents are part of the holiday decor at our house.

 I organize all of my packaging supplies in one place, pull out the bags of gifts I've been hiding in my closet (hopefully my kids are not reading this!) and then I make a pot of tea and turn up the music. This year I am going to be making a number of tissue paper bag toppers - pom poms and tassels. You may have seen these featured in our holiday online magazines, Creative Living.

This is the tissue paper tassel bag topper. It's a tissue paper tassel that has been added to a paper straw using baker's twine. 

Basic directions for making a large tissue paper tassel:

1.  Cut each sheet of (20” x 30“) tissue paper into two (20”x15“) sheets. 

2. Fold tissue in half (10”x15”) and cut fringes 1/2“ wide starting 1 1/2” down from the folded centre edge. To save time, you can cut multiple sheets of tissue together if you are making more than one tassel.  

3. Open the tissue paper and lay flat. You should have 3” of uncut tissue in the centre of each sheet and fringes on either side. Using one sheet of tissue at a time, roll the tissue as shown above. 



4. Tightly twist the rolled middle section of each tassel as shown above. Untangle and fluff 
out your fringes so the tassels hang nicely.

5. Fold the tassel in half and twist to create a loop for hanging. Add a small drop of glue at the 
bottom of the loop to hold in place. 

6. To attach tassel to paper straw - add a bit of glue to the end of the paper straw and lay it over the loop of the tassel. Once the glue is dry, tie the tassel and straw together using baker's twine.

I've shown you how to make tissue paper pom pom bag toppers before ... here's another variation on this diy using staples and washi tape ...

1. Cut tissue paper into four 20”x 15” sheets and stack together.  

2. Along the shortest edge, start making accordion folds about 1” wide. Crease tissue with each fold.  

3. Staple folded tissue on one end. Use scissors to cut the edges of the opposite end into a rounded, petal like shape.  

4. Use washi tape to cover the staples. Fan the tissue paper and make additional cuts if necessary so that the scalloped edge is fairly consistent.  

5. Separate the layers gently by pulling away from the centre one layer at a time. Do this with all layers.  

6. Fluff the top layers and scrunch the bottom so the pompom topper can be inserted into a bag. 

I did a segment on Rogers Daytime TV last week and you can see how to make the tissue paper tassel bag toppers on it as well as some of the other projects that I have been making on the blog for the holidays. See the video from Rogers Daytime TV show here.