gift wrapping: tape border

As you can imagine after winning Scotch Brand's Most Gifted Wrapper contest and the TV presentations that followed I have accumulated a serious stash of Scotch Expressions Tapes. I had seen the tapes on previous occasions but I could never really think of a way of using them. But now the ideas are coming, so I'll be sharing my ideas in the coming weeks 
(just to make it clear—these are not posts that are sponsored by Scotch in any way—yes, I got the products from them, but in connection to the contest and that's it).

 

Tape border wrapping
This is an idea that I came up to use during the contest. [Insert big laugh here!] That round was a disaster! Things definitely did not go as planned. I thought it would be cool to show a different way of using the tapes and here it is...

Steps

1. Measure and cut the wrapping paper (this project is perfect to enhance something more mundane like butcher or kraft paper!) making sure to add an extra 3in. or so.
2. Crease the paper at three points (along the width of the paper) as you can see in the second photo. The second area will need to be the widest since it will be the section that will show off the tape designs and colors.
3. Add alternating strips of colorful tape across two of the folds but not past the third one. As you can see another beauty of this idea is that you can do this fairly quickly and the ends of the strips of tape don't need to line up. The pleats will hide the "messy" work.
4. Turn the wrapping paper over and tape the creases down so that the pleat stays in place.
5. The nice thing about this idea is that the seam will not be visible because the gift is wrapped and taped at the TOP of the box. So start by wrapping the box at the top and make your way around until the taped edge is on the top and covering the seam of the opposite end of the wrapping paper. I like to keep the colorful band of tape off center to make it look a bit more interesting. 
6. Finish wrapping the gift the way you normally would, add a tag (I decorated it with tape and attached it with the same crochet thread I used in my 3D paper embroidery project) and you're done!