Pretty Packaging: Legal Wrapping Paper

One of the attorneys I work for went to the University of Connecticut Law School, and this year is a reunion year for him. Of all the solicitations for this event he received, I saw a potential future outside of the recycling bin for one.

This little cartoon is about 5"x7" and had information about donating to the school on the back. I about died when I read the cartoon text. Since the scan is a bit hard to read, the path of the legal experience includes going "off to the Bar" after graduation, giving back through law clinic and hopefully making it to the Supreme Court.

The Boyfriend has been very involved with clinic activities as a student and is currently studying for the Bar exam. I'm not ruling out the Supreme Court for him either. I decided to turn this image into a sort of wrapping paper for his Coloring Book for Lawyers.

I scanned the image, and then edited the more University of Connecticut specific items out using Picnik since it is free and web-based. I then took that image into Microsoft word and tiled it by just copying and pasting a bunch of times. I printed it on a sheet of paper 11"x17". I only needed to use a little strip in the back to fill in where the ends didn't meet around the gift box.

I didn't want to tape the wrapping paper to the box, since I wanted him to be able to save it. I made a belly band out of a scrap of complimentary paper and stamped the obligatory mortarboard in the middle. The band kept the paper on nicely.

It took a few tries to get the printer settings correct; I had a few extra sheets with the same graphic printed in different ways. In the end, I used a full size sheet of the cartoon as "tissue paper" in the box. Now he has a poster size version of his career path to hang on the wall as motivation.

This was a big hit at the graduation present unwrapping, with everyone asking how I found such spot on wrapping paper. It did take some of the magic out of it to describe how I made it, but it was too easy not to share!