Fabric Gift Wrap (furoshiki)

This year I'm trying out some fabric wrapping "paper" and I'm so excited about it!

Pre-made wrapping fabric (called "furoshiki") on Etsy runs anywhere from $10-20 for a single 20" square piece. Sorry, folks, but that piece of fabric costs more than most of the gifts I'll be wrapping. So I've got a much more budget-friendly option for you today. I'll show you how to make your own for a fraction of the cost!

If you want all the details - where to buy, how much it cost, what pieces I cut, etc. - in video form I've got that linked below. But if you are tired of having to watch a video for everything and just want to skim through the details and pics, scroll past the video for a good old fashioned blog post. Either way, happy wrapping to you!

Why Fabric Wrapping?

So what's wrong with wrapping paper? Well, not much. And I still intend to use it for gifts outside our immediate family or if we ever have anything too big for the fabric wrap (like a bike). But I've been dreaming of fabric wrap for years and decided to finally give it a try for a few reasons:

1. It's reusable. (Honestly, not my main reason but it seems worth mentioning.) It will reduce waste (although I'm not convinced one garbage bag of paper each year is a big deal in the grand scheme of things), it will save money in the long run (I didn't spend much on paper to begin with, but this will break even in a year or two), and it will be here ready for me each year without having to think about it!
2. It's nostalgic. This is much more significant to me than #1. I love familiar traditions that our family can enjoy year after year, and fabric wrapping seems like a perfect fit for that. I hope the kids will remember and look forward to using the same fabric year after year. (I just made them each a Christmas pillowcase this year and they were so excited. So I hope they'll love the fabric wrapping just as much!)
3. It's easy. No scissors. No tape. Just tie a knot and move on. 
4. It's so stinking cute. I saw a fabric-wrapped gift on pinterest years ago and I've had it in mind ever since because it was so simple and so beautiful. 

Materials and Cost

All you really need is:

• fabric (I used woven Christmas fabric from Joann Fabric. Some was quilting cotton and some was flannel. Both worked fine! I expect a knit fabric would also do the job admirably.)
• thread (I used the same off-white for all my fabrics. It doesn't need to be perfect, people.)

A sewing machine is handing for hemming the edges, but if you don't like to sew you could use a knit fabric (no need to hem because the edges won't fray) or use something an iron-on hem tape or fray-stop for woven fabrics. Listen, we're making wrapping "paper" here and no part of this needs to be perfect. 

So how much fabric do you need? Well, that depends on how many gifts you plan to wrap. Obviously. So I can't give you an exact amount, but I can tell you what I did for our family. Here are my considerations (although yours will vary):

• We give each person in our family their own unique paper each year and I want to continue that tradition with the fabric. It's a fun way for everyone to sort out their gifts each year and cuts down on the need to label everything. (We leave a scrap of the same papers in the bottom of each stocking to show everyone which gifts are theirs.) So ideally I would like to have nine different fabric prints - one for each of the eight people in our family, plus one extra for shared family gifts.
• We use the four gift system (you can read about it here) so for the most part I only need to wrap four gifts per person. Since I don't know what size/shape those gifts will be, I want to have a few extra pieces in each print to accommodate whatever I need to wrap. 

With that in mind, my goal is to find nine different prints (I bought five last year to get us started), and I decided to buy:

3 yards per person (so three yards of each print)

The best tip I can give you for buying fabric is to wait and buy it after Christmas. It will be SO MUCH CHEAPER! I bought my fabrics last year (2023) after Christmas and their regular price was $8-10 per yard, but with the sale prices after Christmas I totaled under $27 for 15 yards (under $2 per yard!). I'm excited to hunt down a few more prints this year!

How To Make the Wraps

Now for the technical details. I'll warn you now - this is probably the easiest DIY you'll ever make and it's nearly impossible to mess up. Because, like I said, no part of this needs to be perfect! 

Step 1: 

Lay out your fabric. And cut it into pieces. The most common sizes I saw on Esty were 20" square and 30" square, so I made mine around those sizes. The video is really helpful to see how I was able to cut these really fast and easy! For a three yard piece, I divided it like this:

• one 36" x fabric width
• four 22-25" squares
• one odd shaped roughly 25" x fabric width 

Step 2:

Hem the edges. You can do this however you like. I did a simple rolled hem: fold the raw edges under 1/4", then 1/4" again and sew them in place. You could also serge them, use iron on tape, use fray-stop, or leave them raw (although they will fray if you use woven fabric). Like I mentioned before, if you find knit fabrics you don't need to hem them at all!

Step 3: 

Start wrapping! See? It really is the easiest. To wrap, lay your gift diagonally on the fabric:

Fold in two corners:

Bring in the other two corners and tie them together:

Done. No cutting. No taping. No time wasted. 

After Christmas I put my fabric wrap into a bin so I can store it with the Christmas decorations until next year. This is my stash so far:

I can't tell you how much I loved using fabric wrap. After dreaming about it for so long I was afraid it wouldn't live up to my self-created hype, but it was beautiful and so fun to wrap with. I can't wait to add to my Christmas stash next year, and I might even make some for birthdays, too. 

Let me know if you have any questions or if you give it a try. I hope you love it as much as I do!