If you’re always on the lookout for unique Christmas gift wrapping ideas, we’ve got some that will blow you away! Whether it’s for a small gift for a family member or a next door neighbor treat, the packaging will put a smile on the face of the receiver as much as the contents. They are made from plastic soda bottles and are as cute as can be. We have three versions, a clear square and a small petal flap and a tall mixture of both. We’ve also got some fun ways to fancy them up. If you’d like one more awesome way to use a soda bottle for gift giving, check out our other Creative Gift Wrapping Ideas! FYI we put our Quick Healthy 3 Ingredient Chocolate Fudge Recipe in one of ours!

Christmas Gift Wrapping Ideas Supplies

• Soda Bottles with Straight Sides – 1 or 2 liters depending on size needed
• X-acto Knife
• Dry Erase Marker
• Bells
• Ribbon / Washi Tape Etc. as desired
• Cardstock Paper For Holly and Berries
• Black Paint (for Santa pants)
• Bone Folder (I LOVE this for making creases on my bottles but you can use the end of a butter knife too.)
• Black Ribbon and Gold or yellow paper or felt for Santa belt
• Free Pattern Below

Free Download

pdf

Instructions

We have three styles! You can just start on down the list or click on of the links to jump to the one you want.

Style #2 Small Petal	Style #1 Tall Mixed	Style #3 Square

Style 1: Tall Mixed Style Container

Back to top of page

We used a typical 2 Liter bottle for this one. Many of these have lines around them near the bottom or top. We use those as a base line for measuring, depending on how tall we want our container to be.  Mark your container circle into four equal parts. Then mark it where you will be folding it at.

Fold straight down to your marked area on each “corner” area. 

Once you fold one side you can easily fold the other straight across from it. 

When you are finished you will have a perfect square on the top. The bottom of the container is the bottom of the bottle. 

Cut each corner down to where you marked it. This will be how “high” the container will be.  My bottle is still too high so I’ll end of trimming the petal flaps even more.

Keep in mind that the points where you cut are VERY SHARP. They will poke and draw blood. You’ll be fixing those in a minute. But be careful in the meantime.

Fold the flaps over to the inside and crease the edges sharply using a bone folder tool or the handle of a metal butter knife to press them down.

      You will now pop the flaps back out and trim them down, curving the edges. The flaps will most likely be too long. Keep trimming them evenly until they fall halfway to the middle of the container. They can barely overlap each other or almost touch.  Make a nice curved shape on the edges so they won’t poke anyone.

This shows a completed curved edge.

You can overlap the flaps one at a time to close them. They should stay closed on their own.

You can also punch a hole in two of the flaps for tying them together.

The container can be held together this way also.

 I used ours for a 3 ingredient  Chocolate Fudge Recipe you can get here. This is a perfect holiday neighbor gift.

To make it even more special, I happened upon these ornament cards from Shutterfly and fell in love with them.  They are 50% off and typically stay that way during the holidays. There are many choices and you get to customize both sides and even add a photo if desired, which I did. Attach one to your gift and it doubles as a card/tag for neighbors and friends.  (I love it when companies make me look good for a low cost.)

Hey, who’s that good looking dude I’m with?  This is the back side of the Shutterfly card /tag. Their online system lets you design it up very easily. You can add all kinds of text in a huge variety of styles.  (FYI, the tag I used is called “Merry Chalkboard Berries”.  Again, it’s one of their Ornament Cards.  Brilliant idea.

Style 2: Small Petal Box

Back to top of page

I used a tall slim 32oz bottle for this one though any size will work. (Walmart has a wonderful slim tall 33oz size in their own brand that I use for quite a few crafts for 88 cents each.) Mark the bottle as high as you want it and cut around. In this case I cut off quite a bit as I wanted a fairly short gift container. The flaps themselves will only be 1.5″ or so long. The rest  will be the height you wish the bottle to be.

For the petals you need six flaps, so measure around and divide the bottle into six even sections and mark accordingly. (Finally… that math you took in school comes in handy!)  In all honesty it does NOT have to be exactly even. I eyeballed it to tell you the truth.

Remember, because we are making a short bottle we used the line that was already at the base of the bottle as our guide line  to cut down to. Had that not been there we would have measured and marked around it with a dry erase marker. If you wanted the container taller you would just need to measure up from that line and cut higher.

Cut down to your base line. Also remember that those edges are sharp until you curve them! The petals will need to fold over about half way into the middle of the bottle. Trim them if they are too long.

Bend over each of the six flaps to the inside and press firmly with a bone folder, as you see me using, or a butter knife handle to get a nice clean edge.

Pull the flaps back out and trim around the sharp pointed edges making rounded petal shapes. You can draw on with a dry erase marker first if you’d like a pattern to follow. Remember, dry erase marker wipes right off when you’re done!

After your petals are trimmed and creased you can fold them one at a time, overlapping each, and they will close over the top.

This is the finished container.

It can hold not only treats but small gifts.

Since we made this at Christmas time, the more we looked at this one the more we thought it resembled the bottom of Santa’s pants. So we added a black ribbon belt. We toyed with the idea of a big red pom pom or a white bow. The bow won out.

We  painted black on the four bumps to signify the boot parts and added a paper buckle.

Style 3: Square Box

Back to top of page

This next container was made from another tall 32 oz bottle though you’d never know it!  Measure and cut off both ends of your bottle making it the size you want. Then measure around making four even marks using a dry erase marker and crease each one as shown on above bottles. Make sure to get a nice sharp crease. I love using my bone folder for that but anything hard will work.

This shows two of the the nice creases. Now you’ve got a complete square.

For the bottom flaps you need to measure up on each corner. For my small container I measured up about 1.5″  then cut.

Fold them over like the top part and crease. Again, remember the points are very sharp. Overlap them to close and seal. The bottom could actually be glued if desired to keep it together. Round the very tips of the pointy parts for safety.

Curve the four top flaps either on just the edges or you can also make petal shapes if desired.

Overlap them to close the top.

  We added a bit of gold Washi tape around the middle.

Two small holes were punched  in two of the flaps to tie on a matching gold ribbon and bell.

Back to top of page