How to Wrap a Present and Tie a Bow: Paper and Ribbon Sizes

We read 473 Reddit comments about wrapping gifts. The most common advice was to skip the paper and use a gift bag, in 50 comments. The best advice was three words long: use less paper.

Both make sense once you see where wrapping goes wrong. Three fixes came up in the top replies: less paper, a table instead of a bed, and thicker paper.

If you dread wrapping or only do it once a year, here's how to wrap a present: the paper cut to size for five common boxes, the steps, how to tie a bow, and three published ribbon rules that give three different answers for the same box.

How much wrapping paper do you need?

Cut the paper to the distance around the box plus 1 inch, by the box's length plus its longer end side plus 2 inches. A shoebox 13 × 8 × 5 inches needs about 27 × 23 inches. The table below gives five common sizes, and a dry fold before you tape catches any miss.

That's less paper than most people cut. In one r/mildlyinfuriating thread, a commenter who used to be terrible at wrapping worked out why: "the issue was always Too Much Paper." Their advice: "Use less paper; the nightmare starts when you're trying to fold in all the excess."

Vistaprint's guide gives a way to size it. Pull each side up so it reaches just past the middle of the top, and let the two sides meet with about an inch of overlap.

We turned that into a cut size. Call the longest side of the box L, and the other two sides W and H. The paper goes around the box the short way, so:

• Around = 2 × (W + H) + 1 inch of overlap.
• Along = L + the longer of W or H + 2 inches. Each end gets half the longer end side, plus 1 inch to tuck.

"Around" runs down the length of the roll. "Along" runs across its width, and that's the number that runs out first. A common roll is 30 inches wide, so the big box doesn't fit. Put that one in a gift bag or join two sheets.

The 1-inch overlap is Vistaprint's. The end allowance is our own geometry. We calculated this table and didn't wrap test boxes, so treat the numbers as a starting point. Do a dry fold before you tape, and trim any extra. Hallmark's guide suggests the same "test fold" for the same reason.

If you're wrapping a jewelry box, our birthstone necklace for mom picks are the kind of small box the first row is sized for.

How do you wrap a present, step by step?

1. Set the box face down in the middle of the cut sheet. Work on a table. The top reply (110 upvotes) in that r/mildlyinfuriating thread said: "You'll have a lot better results if you use a table rather than a bed."
2. Bring one side up and over so it reaches just past the middle of the back. Add one strip of tape.
3. Bring the other side over so the two overlap by about an inch. Tape along the edge. Hallmark says taping at the edge of the box, not in the center, makes misalignments less noticeable.
4. Flip the box over. The seam is now on the bottom, out of sight.
5. At one end, press the two side flaps in to make triangles. Crease them hard.
6. Fold the bottom flap up and tape it. Fold the top flap down over it and tape again. Repeat at the other end.
7. Pinch every corner with your finger and thumb to set the crease.

Thicker paper helps, and two commenters said so independently: "get high-quality, thick wrapping paper" (30 upvotes) and "buy good, thick paper and pull the corners tight."

How do you wrap a present without tape?

You can. Hold the paper closed with ribbon or a bow instead of tape, and expect to use a lot more paper: commenters joked it takes two to four times as much. One strip of tape on the edge is the fair compromise, and it's what the Japanese department-store method uses too.

A r/lifehacks thread on wrapping without tape drew a reply with 185 upvotes: "That's how they wrap in Japanese department stores but they do add one piece of tape at the end."

A r/oddlysatisfying thread on the same trick had this at 91 upvotes: "so.. use three times as much paper."

Our take: skip the no-tape method unless you have spare paper and a free afternoon.

How do you wrap an oddly shaped gift?

Put it in a box and wrap the box, wrap it in fabric, or use a gift bag with tissue. For a round object, Vistaprint says to lay it in the center of the sheet and fold the long sides over it. For a cylinder, wrap the curved side and fold the ends in at angles.

Vistaprint adds one more for awkward shapes: gather the paper at the top like a pouch.

Redditors did something simpler. In our count:

• 13 comments (in 8 threads) wrap the gift in fabric, in the Japanese furoshiki style. A scarf or a tea towel works.
• 8 comments (in 4 threads) put the odd item in a box first and wrap the box.
• One reply with 78 upvotes, on a basketball, said to twist the paper closed "like a candy."

The box trick wins for us. A wrapped box looks planned.

How do you tie a bow on a present?

This loop bow looks like a shop bow.

Loop bow:

1. Cut the ribbon. The next section tells you how long.
2. Wrap it around the box and tie a knot on top. That's your base.
3. Make a loop "the size you want half of your bow to be." Southern Home and Hospitality says to make 2 or 3 loops on each side, going back and forth.
4. Lay the stack of loops on the base ribbon. Tie the base around the middle of the loops.
5. Pull the loops apart and fluff them. A flat bow turns into a full one at this step.
6. Trim the tails. Cut them at an angle or a notch.

For a poufy bow, use wired ribbon, which holds whatever shape you give it. For a classic look, use grosgrain or satin. If the ribbon is finished on one side only, twist it once in each loop so the good side faces out.

How much ribbon do you need?

Three published rules give three different answers, and none of them is wrong. The cross-wrap formula, from Australian Printed Ribbon, is (length + width) × 2 + height × 4 + the bow. We used 10 inches for the bow, close to their 24 centimeters. A gift-wrapper on TikTok says to measure 8 times the longest side, which per the caption leaves enough to tie around the gift twice and make a traditional bow. Bespoke Letterpress uses a "1-2-3" rule: length once plus width twice, times three, times two for a thin box, times four for a squarish one. Ribbon width and bow style move the answer as well. We ran all three on five boxes. For the same box they differ by 1.4 to 1.7 times. The paperback comes out at 42 inches by one rule and 72 by another.

The gap makes sense. Each rule assumes its own wrap and its own bow. One ribbon supplier's guide says it replaced its fixed yardage advice with this: "Measure the complete ribbon path on the actual box, then add enough for the knot, loops, and tails. Test one piece before cutting more."

If you want one rule to trust, use the cross-wrap formula, since two separate sites publish it. Better still, use a piece of string. Run it around the box the way the ribbon will go, add the knot and tails, and cut the ribbon to that length. A loop bow uses more ribbon, so cut long and test one piece first.

What goes wrong most, and what do people do instead?

Most problems come down to paper, surface and corners. We pulled 633 comments and dropped 160 that were off-topic. Of the 473 left, 48 described a problem and 77 gave a tip. The table counts every comment tagged with a complaint, and 5 comments sit in two rows, so the rows add up to 54, not 48. Upvote counts in this article are as of September 29, 2026.

The paid-wrapping row comes from two r/mildlyinfuriating threads. One was about a $4 wrap option that arrived as a flat bag, and the other was about a shop's wrapping that came back in a mess. It's a small sample, but it's a fair warning. If you hand your gift to someone else, ask what you'll get.

Gift bags came up more than anything else. Fifty comments in 17 threads said to use a bag, sometimes with tissue paper. Another 16 comments, in 3 threads, said newspaper or kraft paper.

When is a gift bag the better call?

A lot of the time, and that's fine. A gift bag beats paper for anything soft, huge, or awkward, and for anyone who dreads wrapping. It's also a decent answer when you're short on time.

Paper still wins for a flat, boxy gift, and for the moment someone unwraps it. If you're wrapping for a swap, our white elephant rules guide covers what people fight over, and a neat wrap doesn't hurt. Adding a card? See what to write in a birthday card. If you're still picking the gift, start with our Etsy birthday gift picks or the personalized gifts guide.

Grab the box, a tape measure, and a piece of string. Cut the paper from the table above and cut the ribbon by the string, both a little long. Do a dry fold, trim, and then tape.