Christmas Gift Wrapping Inspiration

I would like to say that I take pride in my wrapping when it comes to Christmas presents, but with a nice big uni work/job sized pile on my plate right now, present wrapping has dropped down a few places on the priority list.

I don't like to be lazy though, and there are some super easy ways to make your presents look like you've made two months worth of organised effort, when in actual fact you were panic wrapping after you suddenly realised that the big day was less than a week away.

On my Pinterest I have put together a quick gift wrapping inspiration guide. Whilst a couple of these images are very aspirational, some of them are a whole lot easier than they actually look. For example, just buy some plain brown paper and paint on the bow, or buy some letter stamps (Tiger sell them) and print the people's names on with ink. Even though it probably took you 10 seconds, that hand finished touch makes the experience of gift giving that little bit more special.

A lot of shops now are selling very attractive wrapping paper, especially Scandi style shops like Tiger (I promise I'm not being paid commission on this!) This candy cane print paper was only a couple of pounds, so its superb if you're a student on a budget, like me. Make sure your added touches, like labels and ribbons, match one of the colours within the print and you're good to go!

I think whether you've gone to the extreme lengths of cutting branches off the back of your Christmas tree, or have just brought some cheap paper whilst whizzing past the shops, having a colour scheme makes all of the difference. Browns, reds and whites are particularly festive and go beautifully together, as does gold with black or white.

Georgia.xo

How I Utilise My Instagram Saved Posts

When Instagram's 'save' feature was first introduced I was a bit sceptical, as I was with Instagram stories. We all know that Instagram's updates aren't exactly original, with the concept of stories being taken from Snapchat, the save option is pretty much a take on Pinterest.

But, like most things social media related, we adapt.

As FCP is quite a visual course, and we use Pinterest a hell of a lot, I've learnt how to really utilise the save option. Although Pinterest has a lot of images there in front of you at once (compared to Instagram, where you have one image per scroll) they're not all recent. Instagram, however, is in *ahem* real time (lets forget about this algorithm for the moment), meaning that the content is up to date, on trend, however you want to put it.

Source / Instagram / @makeupisart_x

Generally, I have more images saved on my personal account, because I've had this account for years compared to the few months I've had my FCP account for, so I've developed more of a feed and therefore am constantly seeing new images. Despite this, a lot of my images I save on my personal inspire my FCP content and ideas, so they kind of work hand in hand.

When you first see your saved images, they're in chronological order of when you saved them. They're also laid out in the 3 column gird, making it easier to see, much like Pinterest. I hate viewing it this way. It all just looks so muddled. Which leads me on to 'Collections'.

Collections makes it easier to categorise your images once you've collected them, like a Pinterest mood board. This makes it so much easier to find what you're looking for and is a more organised approach to those who, like me, don't like clutter.

Each collection provides a different category of inspiration. For example, I have a 'Self Promotion' collection, where I can chuck anything that I can relate to my Self Promotion brief for this term. I can then go on and analyse my images.

Collect, categorise, analyse...

So that's how I utilise my Instagram saved posts. I understand how similar this update is to the concept of Pinterest, but I spend a lot more time on Instagram than I do on Pinterest, so it kind of made sense to make the most of it. It's also a great, quick tool to gain some inspiration when I'm not feeling incredibly creative.

What does your saved list look like?

Georgia.xo