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Packaging Ideas for Gifts Hand Delivered

Source of Recipe

Baking for Christmas by Maria Robbins


Recipe Introduction

With the upcoming holidays fast upon us, I think a personal gift made by the giver and personally delivered is always a great gift and appreciated - particularly by those that are elderly or shut-ins and those going through financial hardship. 1. Make the wrapping as important as the gift. Collect baskets, tins, boxes, ribbons and wrappings all year long, especially at yard sales, bazaars, flea markets, craft sales, and antique shops. Some examples of unusual items:

* decorative cookie tins
* antique cookie jars
* large glass wide-mouthed jars with cork stoppers
* decorative plates and platters wrapped with colored cellophane.

* Chinese take-out containers lined with colored tissue paper (You could decorate the exterior too!)

* pretty hat boxes lined with tissue paper
* woven baskets lined with tissue paper and wrapped with cellophane

2. Use dried flowers to decorate a Christmas wrapping. Almost any flower in your garden or florist's boutique can be dried by hanging it upside down. Roses dry particularly well and are beautiful many months later, even when their color has faded.

3. For a gift to a fellow baker, include a special utensil: beautiful copper cookie cutters; a nutmeg grater with a supply of whole nutmeg; a kugelhopf pan *; or even a set of heavy-duty wire cooling racks.

* Kugelhopf is actually originally a favourite Austrian yeast-type cake. The Kugelhopf pan is kinda what's pictured below. It's a mould that you pour your batters and cakes into and bake. When you unmould, you flip it over so that the rounded, pattern is on top. These are similar to tube pans (this recipe site won't let me show pictures :< )