How to make holiday wrapping paper, cards

About five years ago, Amelia Freeman-Lynde visited Durham for the first time.

She and her husband – both Georgia natives – had been living in New York City, where she worked as a freelance theatrical prop designer. She loved New York, but he didn’t – it was pricy, for one, and it seemed grown-up life was perpetually at bay: nobody saved money, owned a home or had kids, she says. For the sake of their sanity, they headed south.

“We actually visited the Scrap Exchange the first time I ever visited Durham,” Freeman-Lynde says, mentioning the city’s longstanding creative reuse nonprofit. “That was a good selling point for moving here.”

About four years ago, they did. And now, Freeman-Lynde is using her design skills to teach classes at the Scrap Exchange, including one on Nov. 28 on DIY gift wrap and cards.

Durham turned out to be perfect for the couple. It is about five hours from their Georgia hometown – close enough to visit the folks, but not so close that people would drop by unannounced. And though there isn’t enough theater here for Freeman-Lynde to make a living designing props, the Scrap Exchange indicated a creative undercurrent fitting her experience and passion. Many of the skills required to make stage props, after all, are common to creative reuse and DIY crafting.

“I’m not that fun to watch movies with,” Freeman-Lynde admits. She sees the props and instantly knows what they’re made of – so much for suspension of disbelief. “It is frequently just a question of being really creative and resourceful with whatever materials you can find.” Sometimes directors and designers’ needs are simple – say, a table of a certain size – but sometimes they need something outlandish – say, a flower that breathes fire. Often there are budgetary constraints, too, so the trick is to make a convincing prop with the materials available and affordable.

Freeman-Lynde applies that mindset to the holidays. “It’s really nice to have a chance to showcase something that you’ve made, and I think a lot of people feel intimidated making presents for people,” she says.

Homemade wrapping paper is less intimidating than knitting a sweater, say.

Here is her process for making stamps out of erasers or foam to decorate paper:

▪ “I usually stock up on things like erasers or foam so I have something to carve on,” Freeman-Lynde says. For this project, which took her about 15 minutes, she started with a white Magic Rub eraser. Then she looked around for inspiration, her eyes settling on a snail-shaped salt and pepper shaker set.

▪ Freeman-Lynde drew the pattern on the eraser, then decided whether she wanted the stamp to be a relief or impression stamp. A relief stamp would mean cutting out the image of the snail itself, and the resulting image of the snail would be paper-colored, surrounded by ink. An impression stamp would mean cutting out everything but the image of the snail, leaving an ink-colored snail surrounded by the paper’s original color.

▪ “I used both an X-Acto knife and a stamp carving tool from Speedball, which would be the same kind of tool you would use for linoleum prints or any kind of studio art printmaking,” Freeman-Lynde says. If all you have is an X-Acto knife, she says, that will work. Using that, trace around the outside of your object (if you’re making an impression stamp, that is). “Then I use my stamp carving tool to add little ridges on the shell and any kind of texture or movement,” Freeman-Lynde says.

▪ Test the stamp out on scrap paper to make sure it looks right. If ink is showing up where it shouldn’t, go back and carve away a little bit more.

▪ “Sometimes in a mailing box you’ll get craft paper or white butcher paper as a packing material,” Freeman-Lynde says. “I have a box at my house where I save stuff like that.” This is what she stamps and uses for wrapping paper. Brown paper bags work as well. Families with kids, she says, often have big rolls of paper, which is useful in the same way.

▪ Once you get some practice at this, you can try making separate stamps that work together to make a multi-colored image: Freeman-Lynde made a holly leaf stamp and a berries stamp, and uses them together to make green leaves and red berries on her own homemade gift wrap.

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 3:25 PM with the headline "How to make holiday wrapping paper, cards."