Budget-Friendly Gifts for Newborns to Tots

If you have your gift wrapped at the mall, your $15 present will quickly turn into a $20 or $25 present. Fortunately, there are tricks to make everyone think you had the gift professionally wrapped when you did it yourself for next to nothing.

Here are a few tips:

• Turn plain boxes into gift boxes by stenciling them with gold and silver paint.
• Wrap your gifts in the Sunday comics. Kids love to look at the colorful pictures.
• Use your children’s artwork as gift wrap.
• Make your own gift wrap. Cut sponges into fun shapes (hearts, stars, moons, etc.), dip them into multicolored paint, and stamp each sponge over the surface of a large sheet of paper several times.
• Save ribbons and bows and use them again. Why waste them? No one will ever know they’re not brand new.