Hazel Shadrick was one of the gift wrappers at Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block’s 29th annual Holiday Gift Wrap.
It took two days and three large rolls of wrapping paper for Megan Young and a co-worker to wrap a BMW motorcycle for display in the Pandora European Motorsports showroom.How the heck do I wrap this?Martha Stewart, the grand exalted queen of all things household, and several other experts offer gift-wrapping tips.• If you’ve got an awkwardly shaped present that’s not too huge — hammer, hatchet, a piece of sculpture, bunch of bananas — find a box to put it inside, then wrap it.• If the gift is long and narrow — golf club, baton, umbrella, javelin — use empty paper towel tubes, mailing tubes, even PVC pipe to disguise it.• For round items, add a top and bottom — say foamcore — and wrap poster board around the gift, like a hat box, then tape, glue or staple it together.• If the gift is too big and bulky — bicycle, surfboard, kayak, 72-inch flatscreen TV — then don’t wrap it. Keep it hidden until Christmas morning, then stick a big bow on it and roll, carry or drag it into the room so you can see the expression on the recipient’s face.Sources: marthastewart.com, www.helium.com, www.homelife.comGift-wrapping fund-raiser at Hamilton Place mallChattanooga’s Kids on the Block gift-wrapping stations in Hamilton Place will be open through Christmas Eve until 6 p.m. The upstairs booth is located across from the Tourist Information Center by Sears and the downstairs booth is in front of JC Penney. The organization has provided a holiday gift-wrapping service to Chattanooga shoppers for 29 years.
The golf club just sat there in front of Pat Stewart, taunting her, daring her to figure out a way to disguise it in Christmas wrapping paper so it wouldn’t look just like a golf club.
“First, I taped a sleeve of golf balls to the club so it made it sort of look like a candy cane,” says Stewart, of Chattanooga. “I used newspaper, cardboard and tape around it to try to complete the candy-cane shape. Then I used red and white paper to finish off the look. It was a shameful candy cane but it didn’t look like a golf club either.”
It’s a common challenge around the world come Christmastime — not every gift comes in an easy-to-wrap cardboard box. What do you do with that hammer so it isn’t sitting under the Christmas tree telegraphing “Hey, I’m a nicely wrapped hammer”?
And what if you’re wrapping a gigantic present, say, a motorcycle?