The holiday season is here again, and this year I have a lovely hand lettered holiday wrapping tutorial for you to follow along with by Mirjana Teuner from Apartment 406 Designs. Mirjana discovered my Hand Lettering Podcast around the time I first launched it. She began participating in lettering challenges I set in the podcast episodes and we have been in contact ever since. Over the past year or so Mirjana has grown from a beginner at lettering into a wonderfully talented lettering artist. Mirjana comes from Germany but travelled all the way to the country Colombia to be with her partner Pablo. They created Apartment 406 Designs to fulfil a shared dream of working on creative projects together. The Apartment 406 Designs website now hosts interesting and helpful blog posts, fun freebies like wallpapers and has two shops. Mirjana has come a long way since she first started lettering, she is the perfect role model for showing that it doesn’t have to take years to build skills and make an income from lettering, just hard work and passion.
I love seeing the new and creative ideas Mirjana comes up with and invited her to create a holiday hand lettering tutorial, and the holiday wrapping paper was what she cleverly came up with. Mirjana has provided step by step instructions for the tutorial and pictures to document every step of the way. She has also designed the tutorial so you can easily find most of the tools and materials needed at home.
If you’d like some more holiday inspiration on top of this awesome tutorial past tutorials include ‘Creating Festive Hand Lettered Cards with Emma Holmes’, ‘Seasonal Gift Tags in Four Steps with Belinda Love Lee’ and ‘Hand Lettering a Gift for the Holiday’.
What do you enjoy most about Christmas?
“That it makes everything a little quieter, slower and more peaceful. I love the lights, the smells, the happy anticipation for Christmas, the Christmas market, the hot Christmas beverages and that people seem a lot sweeter with each other. It has its own magic and for me it is my favourite holiday of the year.”
Tools / Supplies needed:
– A sheet of paper (A4 or A3)
– A pair of scissors
– Some glue
– A pencil to draw the letters “hoho” once in uppercase and if you like once in lowercase letters (I made both versions)
– A printer to print the “hoho” letters in case you’d like to use my sheet
– A sheet or some left overs of sponge paper
– A can / tin or glass for the tree stamps
– A wood cube, a stone or something similar to use as a holder for your letter stamp
– An ink pad / stamp pad
Steps Involved for Making Hand Lettered Holiday Wrapping Paper
Step One – “Glue the paper with your or my letters on the sponge paper.”
Step Two – “Cut out along the outlines of your letters.”
Step Three – “Glue them on your wood cube, make sure they are mirrored so they are correct when you stamp them.”
Step Four – “Glue a piece of sponge paper around your tin as shown in the image.”
Step Five – “Cut out little triangles.”
Step Six – “Glue little triangles along the sponge band around your tin.”
Step Seven – “Apply ink on all the triangles and roll the tin over the sheet of paper.”
Step Eight – “Apply ink on the letter couples and stamp on the sheet as well.”
Step Nine – “Create all the combinations you like.”
Step Ten – “Wrap your gifts.”
Final Thoughts, Tips and Considerations
“I created this craft with materials I had at home and I decided to write the letters “ho” and “HO”, because they are not too difficult to write and cut out. If you have old erasers at home, they also work great as a stamp material and you can cut them easily with a cutter. The nice thing about using stamps is that each sheet of wrapping paper turns out uniquely. Even with just one ink colour you can create many different patterns with two / three stamps by combining them differently. If you have several ink colours you can make even more variations. You can also stamp on coloured paper, on newspaper or on fabric. I love doing Christmas crafts while listening to Christmas music and drinking Christmas tea. I hope you enjoy this tutorial! Have a very wonderful Christmas time!”
More from Mirjana and Apartment 406 Designs
If you would like to see more of Mirjana’s fun and inspiring lettering work visit the apartment406designs.com website or shops on Etsy and Society6. Mirjana also regularly posts her work to Facebook and Instagram too.
