What you need to know to make your own dip-dye wrapping paper

Creating your own wrapping paper allows you to add an extra level of thoughtfulness to your holiday gifts. With dip dying, you immerse sections of paper into colourful dyes to make geometric designs. Here is a quick tutorial for how to make dip-dye wrapping paper.

• You'll need several small bowls, one for each colour of dye you intend to use on your wrapping paper.
• You have a few different options for creating the dye. You can dilute acrylic or craft paints, or you can use water colours. This tutorial uses food colouring.
• Find paper that's thin enough to be absorbent but thick enough to stay intact when submerging it in water.
• Good options are rice paper or tissue paper. The best colour paper to use is white because it will allow the colours of the dye to remain true.
• Finally, it's a good idea to protect your work surface. Cover your work area with a disposable plastic tablecloth.

• Each of your bowls will hold one colour of dye. The ratio of food colouring to water determines how bright and vibrant the colour will be on the paper.
• Fill each bowl with 475 millilitres of water.
• Use 20 drops of food colouring for intense, saturated colours. If you want softer or more muted tones, use less food colouring.

• The way you create the geometric designs is by folding your paper. For a checkered design or repeating colourful squares, fold your paper into squares.
• To create a repeating circular pattern, fold your paper into a triangle.
• The size of the final geometric design depends on how small you fold the paper. The smaller you fold the squares or triangles, the smaller the checkers or circular patterns will be.

• For the checkered design, take the folded squares and dip one half of the square into one colour and the other half into another colour.
• For the circular pattern, dip each corner of the triangle into different colours to create varying patterns of colourful circles.
• Finally, after dipping, gently unfold your paper and lay it on the plastic tablecloth to dry.

Making your own dip-dye wrapping paper is an enjoyable activity for adults and children alike. Any colour combination can be used to create lively, multi-coloured wrapping paper for almost any occasion.