I've been making my own wrapping paper for the past couple of events that required gifting: Vargas girls for a bachelorette party, black and white photos of my friend's dogs for his birthday, and Andreanna loves Eric for my friend's wedding gift. It's inexpensive, wonderfully personal, and a gift unto itself before the person even sees what's inside.
Here are the tricks:
1. Keep it simple. I first did famous quotes about marriage and love, over and over, and it was much too much. "Andreanna loves Eric, Eric loves Andreanna," is a clear and simple message, true to the occasion. Andreanna liked it so much she incorporated it in the in-law's gift-bags.
2. Color, also simple. If you're doing a text, pick one, maybe two colors, and that's it. I chose a brown craft paper to play off of the formality of the teal blue and font, and found a fat silk ribbon to match.
3. High Res. Don't even bother if you don't have solid pictures. They'll get a little fuzzy when they're printed to begin with, so you need really clean photos and a little finesse to bring out the best in them. For the Vargas girl wrapping, I scanned in 11 x 17 pictures from a book and printed onto a cream matte paper. I then wrapped the whole thing with hot pink twine. It was sexy, girly, and a little rustic. If you're doing photos, let them be the star and chose ribbons that don't compete.
4. Typography. Once again, simplicity. I come from a family of typography nerds where Helvetica is king and we point out lame kerning, so, we're a little obnoxious about this stuff. But seriously, pick fonts that match the event and recipient in tone, and try not to pick anything that would pop up in a pre school teacher's power point presentation. I'm looking at you, curls and papyrus!
5. Printing and wrapping. I print on 8 1/2 x 11" paper using my sister's ink jet printer. The trick is to connect the pages using double-sided tape so you don't have any tape poking out and ruining the look of the paper. I usually use a 2 rows of 3 pages for larger gifts. I feel like spray mount would work as well, but the double-sided tape was handy, and laziness prevailed.
6. Have fun. Don't pull you're hair out over this, and just aim to make something you think they'll enjoy. At the end of the day, it's a gift! And who doesn't love gifts?
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