Let’s Wrap This Thing Up!

This is Ms. Blossom Sparks. She is a sister to Sateen Damask. They were made at the same time and using similar techniques. Blossom has a Venetian style mask, she looks like she is about to head off to a masquerade ball at any moment.

This tea cosy was given as a gift to someone for a very important birthday. I take a lot of time with the presentation of my work and how it is parcelled and packaged. I want the receiving of a piece of my art work to be an experience and I want that experience to begin the minute it is placed in the hands of the recipient.

As I have already said, I love the classics like Jane Austen’s novels and also old children’s movies like Pollyanna. I love when Pollyanna’s aunt takes her clothes shopping when she first arrives to town. She is followed from the shop to their carriage by many shop assistants carrying many packages and boxes. They are of all shapes and sizes and I imagine the contents are all wrapped in tissue paper. I always want my work to feel like it is a “real” present. “Real” present meaning presents that look like they are sitting under a candle lit Christmas tree in a Victorian children’s book illustration. I want them to be covered in red satin ribbon or wrapped in stiff brown paper and tied up with string.

Altogether now…..

“…Brown paper packaged tied up with string,

These are a few of my favourite things…”

You really can’t beat singing nuns to get the sentiment across, can you?!

All of that which I have just described, combined with a life-long lesson in delayed gratification from my dear old dad, has led me to wrap everything in tissue paper with handmade labels in beautiful boxes tied up with ribbon and topped off with bouquets of dried flowers that I dried at home myself.

Too much??

NEVER!!!

Every time I hand over a piece and the wrapping feels like a present in and of itself I feel like I have done my job well. The amount of times I have heard “I don’t want to open it, it will ruin the wrapping” is now verging on the comical. I really do believe that everyone, at least once in their lives, deserves a present that looks like it came out of a picture book.