The Tape Debate: where do you place it?
In my life so far, I have learned there is one very important dividing line to distinguish the type of person you are: are you a tape-on-er or a three-piece-er when it comes to wrapping presents?
The tape-on-ers maintain the view that in order to ensure a neatly wrapped package, a present-wrapper ought to secure the wrapping paper to the package itself at appropriate points. This ensures that the paper does not slip or loosen as the process moves along, giving crisp corners and a satisfying final product.
The three-piece-ers maintain the view that adhesives ought not touch the gift itself. A proper wrapping job will encase, but not stick to, the package within it. With exceptions for larger gifts, a box only needs three pieces of tape—one on the bottom, and two on the sides. Proper technique is enough to ensure the paper does not slip or loosen.
I am sorry to say this very issue currently divides my sister and me. How we have made it through so many Christmases wrapping presents side by side I will never know, let alone when we open the birthday gifts we have wrapped for each other! Every year we rehash the same points back at one another, but alas, we have found ourselves at a stalemate.
Are you aware of this debate? Have you faced it in your own life? How do you weigh in?
Would you share your best arguments for/against one side?
In case it isn’t reading well over the internet, this question is meant entirely as lighthearted and humorous mock-outrage. Go wild with your hyperbole and your melodrama, you fine jellies!
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13 Answers
Here’s what I do:
I start by placing the gift neatly in the center of a rectangle of a piece of wrapping paper.
I start by pulling one side over half the gift.
I pull the other side over and pull about 20 pieces of tape off the tape round and put it on the paper. I then bunch up the one side that is sticking out, and add another 30 pieces of tape.
Then, what happens is the paper rips in the middle, or the tape gets on-done. So, I either rip of more wrapping paper and cover it in tape, or I add about 20 more pieces of tape.
I do the same with the other side. What it leaves, is a nice mess of wrapping paper surrounding a gift.
I then cry
In short, I am “100-piece-er”
I don’t like taping the present itself and so I usually require more than three bits of tape. The problem for me is finding the end of the sellotape. You can hold it up to the light but being transparent it probably won’t help. If you feel all the way round the roll with your finger nails you will sometimes find where the end is but then you must check whether the tape runs forward or backward from this point.
And that’s not all once you begin to peel the tape from the roll it will tear and you end up with one useless little bit of tape stuck to your fingers. Finally you are able to unpeel a decent length of sellotape suitable for your purpose so you cut it off with the scissors. The cut piece then flies back and attaches itself to your hand while the other end miraculously disappears back into the roll of tape and the whole process must start again.
If the present is a cuboid, (Box-shaped with six flat faces and all angles are 90 degrees. I apply the tape only to paper.
If it is an irregular shape and the packaging is plastic I will attach the paper with a small bit of tape and then wrap it any way I can.- with a liberal amount of tape.
I’m a bagger. I guess I better go sit somewhere else…
I definitely do NOT apply tape to th e packaging, but only to wrapping paper.
Tape applied to the packaging mars the package when unwrapped, and makes it unsightly. If a return is necessary, stores don’t like the degraded package.
I have never applied sellotape to a present itself, and generally I use between 3–6 pieces of sellotape to secure the wrapping. And I ABSOLUTELY recommend using a heavy-based tape dispenser like this.
@Soubresaut Bagger here too! (never thunk to buy the tissue paper to stuff in and make it look nicer).
For a wrapped gift, tape goes on the wrapping paper, not the package.
I tape wherever is needed on the wrapping paper to keep it there. But no, not on the present itself.
I only tape the paper. As an aside, I always use brown craft paper, and a blue stick on bow.
I write to: and from: right on the paper.
I guess I’m the only one that’s never thought about it. I’ll tape paper to gift right away, and never considered not doing it I guess. The exception being something that will be damaged or tape won’t stick to. Then I usually just try to get crafty so I can get some tape on it somehow. I’ll put a post-it note, with a message, and then tape to that. Can’t have your paper wiggling around all willy nilly.
Lock! It! Down! Unsecured paper, unsecured life is what I always say. ~
Seriously though, I’m crazy about what someone will see first while tearing the paper off and will make one side airtight if needed to make sure it gets opened right.
3 pieces of tape… that’s funny.
intended in the same tone as the original post
GA to all! Thank you guys. These responses made me smile and/or laugh, which is what I guess I was looking for when I first posted this.
Sorry to have seemingly abandoned this question after asking it! Wasn’t my intention at all, if it bothered anyone. I was following on my phone for a time, and then the holidays were a bit busy and I just haven’t logged in for a while.
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