Rachel Wood. from Northfield, professionally trained in gift wrapping while studying visual merchandising at university
Meet the professional present wrapper who gave him the best tips for wrapping the perfect pressie – including using your AIR FRYER.
Rachael Wood, 33, received professional training in gift wrapping while studying visual merchandising at university.
But she only started doing it as a job when she packed an entire client Christmas transported two years ago, to save them time before a trip abroad.
Rachael, from Birmingham, West Midlands, spent the whole day wrapping gifts and realized she could provide this service to help others over the festive period. The current perfectionist now wraps hundreds of gifts over the festive period – and charges between £6 and £9.50 per gift, even offering a door-to-door service.
The packaging is environmentally friendly and makes sure to reuse and recycle materials as much as possible.
Her top tips include using a hair dryer to remove stickers from bags and boxes so they can be reused, and drying citrus fruits in the air fryer to create natural embellishments.
Rachael wraps hundreds of presents and even wrapped a car this year.
When it’s not Christmas time, she makes props for weddings and theaters and even made floats for the Common Wealth games earlier this year.
Rachael said: “My favorite thing about wrapping is seeing the joy people feel, and they say their gifts are amazing and beautiful. I make sure I know exactly what the recipient wants to personalize their package.
Rachael, who calls her business Polywood Studios, wrapped two entire hotels in Solihull Birmingham in giant 2m by 2m arches in November 2019.
“It was definitely a challenge,” she said.
“Everyone had to help, and we had climbed ladders to perfect the bow.”
Rachael embellishes her presents using beautiful accessories such as feathers, bows and dried flowers.
The craftsman urged everyone to save their cardboard delivery boxes to use for gifts.
She said: ‘I’m really pedantic – the patterns on the paper have to line up perfectly.
“I am an absolute perfectionist.
“I love to wrap unusual gifts and try to conceal the identity of the gift for a surprise.
“For example, if it’s a book, I’ll put it in a box so it’s not so obvious.
“It takes me about ten minutes to wrap each present.”
The creation also makes a point of reusing wrapping paper and being as eco-friendly as possible and often uses mason jars so recipients can reuse them.
She also makes ‘fushoriki’ – a traditional Japanese wrapper, which involves wrapping gifts in fabric that can be reused.
The packaging connoisseur swears by “wrapping paper”, i.e. the loose paper that is usually thrown away after deliveries, which she reuses and embellishes with vibrant decorations.
She also dries old bouquets to use the flowers to decorate her gifts.
“You don’t have to break the bank to make your gifts look expensive – you can wash and reuse old ribbons,” Rachael added.
Although she is a professional packer, Rachael admits to making a few mistakes in the past.
She laughed, “Oh, I’ve made so many mistakes and had so many disasters in the past.
“I’m always tearing up paper, but luckily I’ve gotten pretty good at fixing it.
“Once I wrapped something and forgot whose it was, I had to open it to see whose it was and wrap it again.”
Rachael’s Top Packing Tips
– Dry the citrus slices on low heat in the air fryer or oven – Don’t throw away old Christmas cards – Repurpose them to stick them on wrapping paper for beautiful gift wrapping – Use a potpourri of Christmas and stick it on gifts with a glue gun – looks and smells great, cinnamon sticks work just as well – Instead of buying gift tags, buy a nice pen or ink pad set and put the name directly on the gift – Wrap small items in seeded paper that can be planted in the garden afterwards – If you have some patterned wrapping paper left but not enough for an entire gift, wrap wrap your gift in plain paper (crumpled wrapping paper works well), then use the patterned paper as a band around the middle – waste won’t. – Rub a hair dryer over an old tag to remove it and reuse a box – Wash and straighten old ribbon with a hair straightener – Hang old bouquets upside down to dry and use dried flowers for decoration. embellishment
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