Put a ribbon on it!

When I started making my first  smaller accessories , the last thing on my mind was packaging. The first items I sold were custom wrapped by me, but without a personal touch.  I wanted to give my customers that sense of excitement when you receive a gift and open it. When you buy something on the internet, it is like buying a present for yourself.  So I looked for a better and more beautiful solution for wrapping my items. I found some small paper bags with typical Dutch Delft Blue designs. Also I made cute boxes from gold and silver dyed craft paper and bought lots of ribbon in several colors.

I also love to customize the gift wrapping per personal request.
It did suffice for a while, but after some time I wanted the wrapping to be even more personal.  I started to sew my own cotton and linen drawstring bags. I hand stamped them with my name  or attached a leather tag with my logo or name.

The drawstring bags turned out very nice and for small bags and large accessories I still use them. The results inspired me to explore other materials too. On a bookbinding fair I found the most lovely hand-made paper that was very suitable for sewing. A few months ago I started to sew these new paper gift bags. Wrapped with a ribbon and often decorated with a small leather heart, these bags are a hit. Customers love them and  give a lot of compliments about the packaging. It even has an unexpected side effect; one of my customers was hesitant to unwrap her package 😉 She wrote: “Lovely, well made, arrived in the most beautiful packaging – almost – didn’t want to unwrap it!
Thank you!”