DIY Wood Grain Faux Bois Wrapping Paper

What better to go with our woodland Christmas theme than wood grain faux bois wrapping paper. I found this great little wood graining tool at Home Hardware -for my American readers you can get one at the Home Depot -for $4. This is a great little tool, and here’s how to use it to make wrapping paper.

Start with some kraft paper, craft paint -I used silver and white, and acrylic glazing medium. I picked up the glazing medium at the art store for under $10.

Mix the craft paint with the glazing medium, 1 part paint to about 2 parts glazing medium. Paint this mixture all over the paper in a thick-ish coat. Using the graining tool, slide it through the glaze, and rock it slightly to create the grain effect. It takes a little getting used too, there is definitely a little learning curve! But keep experimenting until you get a look you’re happy with, and once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy, honest. 😉 The glaze in the paint extends it’s drying time, so you have a while to play around with it. It you don’t like it, paint over it again and keep trying.

You can do it on wrapping paper sheets, paper bags, or kraft paper gift bags. Truth in blogging, I did find it a little difficult to do a big sheet of wrapping paper, but with practise it gets easier. I found it was drying before I finished the whole sheet, but I just had to add the glaze-paint mixture a bit more thickly and work in sections. The little gift bags are much easy to work with. I did one side of the bags, let it dry completely, and then did the other side.

Once the paint dried I gathered up some simple woodland embellishments, like twine, snowflakes, feathers, pine cones, tinsel, some twigs painted silver, and some great wood grain ribbon from Walmart.

I really like the mix of the rustic with the silver sheen and sparkle for Christmas. I also used some wood veneer business cards that I stamped and wrote on for gift tags.

Jingle bells were a fun addition too.

This package is wrapped in white paper, and then just has a band of the wood grain paper -great way to add the wood grain detail, and not use up too much of the precious paper. 😉

With packages this pretty, life really is a party!

This post is linked up at The CSI  Project, 36th Avenue, Craftberry Bush, French Country Cottage, Common Ground, Shanty 2 Chic, Coastal Charm, The Frugal Girls, Liz Marie Blog, The Vintage Farm House, Whipperberry, Savvy Southern Style, Tatertots and Jello, and Inspired By Charm.