DIY Vintage Map Christmas Gift Wrap and Gift Bags

Vintage maps are so, so awesome. They’re beautiful pieces of art in my mind, and I’m so obsessed with them lately that I knew I had to incorporate them into our Christmas decor this year. If you haven’t seen it yet, pop on over here to see our Christmas home tour this year in colours of teal and green – the colours of a beautiful vintage map coincidentally! Here are some ideas on how to incorporate vintage maps into your Christmas gift wrapping this year, and where you can find them. Scroll to the end of this post for more brilliant Christmas gift wrap ideas from my blogging friends!

You can often find vintage maps and atlases at antique shops, garage sales, flea markets and thrift stores. You can also find reproduction vintage maps online to purchase. For my gift wrapping, I chose to print off a high resolution scanned antique map that I found here. I printed my chosen map onto 11 x 17″ paper at Staples, and that was big enough to cover most of my smaller presents like DVD’s, small toys and books. For larger presents, I would tape or sew some sheets together.

I used some beautiful ribbons in tones of teal, green and gold from May Arts Ribbon (thank you, May Arts Ribbon, for supplying these).

I layered thin velvet ribbon with gold dots over thicker ribbon to create the presents with the lovely large bows.

This gold leaves ribbon is one of my favourite ribbons of all time, and I love how it looks simply wrapped around a gift with the vintage map paper.

I also reserved one of my 11 x 17″ map print outs to make a custom gift bag. Here’s how I did it:

1. Fold the two edges of an 11 x 17″ towards the center to meet in the middle as shown.
2. Fold up the bottom third of the paper towards the center as shown.
3. Open up the bottom fold, and then press the sides down towards the center to make two triangles.
4. Fold the top and bottom tips of the base you’ve just created towards the center of the bottom and tape them down with clear tape.
5. Fold the sides of the bag towards the middle as shown.
6. Open up the bag and shape it, creasing the corners if needed.
7. At this point, you can choose to fold down the top a little for added strength, and glue or tape on some ribbon for handles.
8. Attach an ornament of name tag & you’re done your custom map gift bag!

Ready for some Christmas gift wrapping ideas and tutorials from my so-very-talented Canadian blogging friends?!