Making Paper Bags for Gifts

Not all gifts come with boxes, or rather, gift boxes are very costly. Paper bags make an economical, beautiful and great [Ms. Gan's "Peng, leng, zheng" (say it in cantonese) motto] option. All you need is half a wrapping paper for small gifts, a whole wrapping paper for large gifts or 2 pieces of wrappers for gigantic gifts.

So, today I'm going to teach you how to make a gift paper bag. What you need are the following:

a) Double sided tape (smallest width you can find, I bought my 5mm width from Joo Hua Stationery Shop in Section 14, PJ). Alternatively, you can use normal cellophane tape and fold it lengthwise to make it a makeshift double sided tape.
b) Scissors, blade. Special pattern scissors optional.
c) Wrapper.
d) Ribbons to complement the wrapper.

A figure-guided tutorial. Click to view large.

1. The items.
2. I bought a double sided wrapper so I'm going to make use of both sides to wrap. Fold half lengthwise then cut the wrapper at centre point.
3. Stick the double sided tape on one half of the wrapper lengthwise (correct side facing up).
4. Join the other half (correct side facing up) to the taped half following the tape's width. Press the two halves firmly in the middle. While they're firmly pressed together, unroll the white film of the tape so that it sticks. Continue this press-unroll-press-unroll pattern so that your sticking will not go misaligned.
5. You'll now have a piece of wrapper with 2 patterns in each half side. Take any side's corner and fold it slightly longer than the width of the double sided tape. Stick double sided tape on the flap.
6. Foldover the other corner towards this flap (like a McDs Foldover) lengthwise. Press firmly and unroll the white part of the tape. Then, even out the wrapper by making a dead fold at the centre of the foldover.
7. The product should now look like this.
8. Fold a flap from the bottom (determine which is your top and bottom by now if your wrapper makes sense only when you read from the right direction, especially teddy bear wrappers ok, if the teddy bears go sideways, then you can't help it). The flap should be 1 cm bigger than the size of your gift's bottom (determine how you want to place your gift).
9. Fold down the corners of the bottom flap like so.
10. Fold each flap over the middle line by the width of the double sided tape.
11. Place the double sided tape like so.
12. Fold the non-taped flap down first, then fold up the taped flap. Unroll the double sided AFTER you pressed the flaps together to avoid mistakes.
13. Fold the sides so that the pointy edge touches the inward-pointy edge of the bottom.
14. It should now look like this.
15. Unfold the bag by putting your hand inside and adjust it to how a paper bag should look like.
16. The bag should now look like this.
17. Place your gift and fold the top flap downwards. Cut the top flap's edges with funky patterned scissors anyway you want and voila. Add ribbons if you like. Because my top flap is too short to cover the gift nicely, I improvised. I'm now going to make a fan-topped paper bag. Place the gift on top of the paper bag like so. Make a fold at where the gift ends.
18. Make folds to resemble a Chinese fan.
19. Place the gift in. Then remake the folds, hold the top of the fan anywhere you like and spread out the two fan corners like so.
20. Tape the fan's holding point . Make a bow out of a ribbon and glue it like so. Tadaa!