Wrapping A Gift Basket With Ease!

How To Wrap And Mail A Gift Basket

- Learn how to properly wrap a gift basket

- Mail a gift basket properly

Gift Basket Tutorial

In the middle of the crazy Christmas season you’ve taken the time to put together a beautiful personalized gift basket for your Mom who lives 3000 miles away. She loves to drink coffee and tea so you have included gourmet boxes and tins of each along with some biscotti, dark chocolate (very healthy), a handmade ceramic mug, and, since she loves to read, the latest Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Everything has been carefully placed in a rattan-handled basket with a large piece of florists foam at the bottom. Each item secured with bamboo skewers stuck into the foam and attached to the various gift basket products with double-sided tape. Shred has been scattered throughout to hide the mechanics behind your creation and some artificial flowers have been included. It’s absolutely gorgeous! Now, the problem is, how to mail this to Mom without the whole thing falling apart.

If Mom lived close by, you could wrap the basket in cellophane and tie it together at the top with a big bow. But since this gift needs to be mailed you must use shrink-wrap, either from a roll or purchased as a bag, to keep everything in place. I would definitely recommend using the bag; it is much quicker and easier though a bit more expensive.

Shrink Wrap From A Roll

* Unroll the wrap as you would unroll some paper gift-wrap
* Place gift basket on it and extend the wrap about 10” above the basket on all sides
* Take your basket off of the wrap
* Look at the wrap and you’ll see that comes doubled
* Open it up and place the basket on it again
* Extend the wrap up and around all sides of the basket
* Pull upward securely to give it a uniform appearance
* Tie a pretty ribbon tightly around the excess wrap gathered at the top of the basket
* Slowly and carefully use a heat gun or hair dryer to shrink the wrap
* Always start at the bottom, gradually working your way up
* Use even strokes, always moving around the basket
* Never stay in one place too long or you’ll put a hole in the wrap
* Do not shrink the wrap above where you tied it with ribbon
* Trim the wrap above the ribbon, add a beautiful bow, and your creation is ready

Shrink Wrap Bags

* A bag has one end that is open and one end that is sealed
* Buy a shrink wrap bag that is as close as possible to the size of your gift basket
* Put the bag over your basket, sealed end at the top, open end under the basket
* Fold and tape the excess material under the basket
* Use a heat gun or hair dryer to shrink
* Work your way from bottom to top slowly and carefully
* Hold the excess wrap out to the side and shrink until bag is tight
* Attach a bow with double sided tape or
* Carefully punch a tiny hole in the wrap and tie a bow to the handle
* Various decorations (flowers, picks) can be used to hide holes caused by the heat

Finishing It Up

Set your basket into a good strong box. Use packing paper, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, or old wrapping paper to keep it firmly in place. Do not use newspaper since the ink may get onto the gift basket wrap. Sending via UPS is usually cheaper than the post office.

YOUR MOM AND ANYONE ELSE WHO GETS A GIFT BASKET FROM YOU WILL REALLY APPRECIATE THE TIME AND EFFORT YOU SPENT; AND YOU’LL BE IMPRESSED AT HOW CREATIVE YOU REALLY ARE AND HOW MUCH FUN YOU HAD.