How to Use Tissue Paper for Gift Bags, Flowers and Fragile Gifts

How many sheets of tissue a gift bag takes

Start with the opening of the bag, not its height. Tissue that fans above the rim needs a long side about twice as wide as the opening, so the corners can rise on both sides of the gift and still meet in the middle. Our 20 x 14 in sheet has a 20-inch long side, exactly twice the 10-inch opening of a common medium bag. On the 14 x 10 in sheet the long side is 14 inches, a little short of twice an 8-inch small bag.

That ratio is our own working rule of thumb at Koogel, worked out from our two sheet sizes. It is arithmetic, not a standard, and the table puts it into counts.

Area helps when you swap one size for the other. A 20 x 14 sheet covers 280 square inches, while a 14 x 10 sheet covers 140, exactly half. Two small sheets do the work of one large sheet when all you need is volume. Height is where they fall short: on a large bag a 14-inch side barely clears a 13-inch opening, so the fan sits low.

Every count below includes one sheet crumpled loosely into the bottom. It lifts a short gift toward the top and hides the floor of the bag. A candle jar or a bottle that already fills the bag's height can skip that sheet.

The counts also tell a small shop what a pack covers. At three sheets a bag, a 120-sheet pack of 20 x 14 fills 40 medium bags. A 330-sheet pack of 14 x 10 fills about 80 small bags at four sheets each, or 110 at three.

The fold-and-fan method, step by step

A fan is two or three sheets pinched at the center and pushed into the bag point first, so the loose corners stand up like petals. Flat sheets laid across the top look like a lid. Pinched sheets look full with half the paper.

1. Crumple one sheet loosely and drop it into the bottom of the bag.
2. Set the gift on that cushion, with its best side facing the front of the bag.
3. Lay a second sheet flat, then lay a third on top of it, turned so its corners sit between the corners of the first. Two sheets now show eight points instead of four.
4. Pinch both sheets together at the center and lift. The corners fall down around your hand.
5. Push the pinched point into the bag beside the gift, about a third of the way down.
6. Pull each corner up gently and spread the points so none of them hang over the outside of the bag.

On a medium bag the third sheet of 20 x 14 goes in the same way on the other side of the gift. Small bags take one fan of two 14 x 10 sheets. Large bags take two fans of two large sheets each, one at the back and one at the front, with the front fan a little lower.

The pack notes on our 14 x 10 buffalo plaid tissue say the same thing in fewer words: two or three sheets make a full tuft. Printed tissue is the easiest place to see the difference that offset corners make. With the plaid turned 45 degrees on the second sheet, the checks cross at an angle and the top reads as deliberate rather than stuffed.

Leave the handles clear. Paper caught between the handles tears when the bag is lifted, and the person opening the gift should reach the fan first, not a crushed rope of paper.

Wrapping a fragile gift with tissue and crinkle

Tissue protects a surface. It keeps a glass from scratching against a jar and keeps a printed mug from rubbing its pattern off. What it cannot do on its own is stop a heavy gift from sliding into the side of the bag or box. Crinkle filler does that part.

Here is the order that works for glassware, ceramics and ornaments:

1. Spread a bed of crinkle about an inch or two deep across the floor of the bag or box.
2. Roll the item in two sheets of tissue, the way you would roll a fish in paper, and twist the ends closed.
3. Stuff a crumpled sheet inside anything hollow, such as a mug, a vase or a bowl, so the walls are supported from the inside too.
4. Set the item upright in the crinkle and pack more crinkle around its sides.
5. Tilt the bag or box. When the item no longer shifts, the packing is done.
6. Finish the top with a tissue fan, or for a shipping box, one flat sheet folded over the contents.

Two smaller items in one bag should never touch. Give each one its own roll of tissue and its own pocket of crinkle, and set the heavier one at the back.

Our crinkle filler comes as a 1 lb bag of crumpled paper strips in black, brown, green, pink or yellow. Color matters more than people expect, because crinkle shows at the top of an open basket and between the corners of a fan. Brown crinkle under kraft tissue reads as one material. Black crinkle under gold print tissue gives the gold something dark to sit against.

Small shops packing orders can use the same order inside a mailer box. The crinkle holds the product in place during shipping, and the tissue on top is what the customer sees when the lid comes off.

Wrapping flowers in tissue paper

Flowers from the yard or the market look like a gift as soon as tissue goes around them. For a hand-tied bunch of six to ten stems, two 20 x 14 sheets are enough.

1. Lay one sheet flat with a corner pointing toward you, so it forms a diamond.
2. Place the second sheet on top, shifted a few inches to one side, so the top edge shows two layers of points.
3. Set the bouquet diagonally across the middle, flower heads above the top corner.
4. Fold the bottom corner up over the stems.
5. Bring the left side across, then the right side, to make a cone.
6. Tie the narrow point with jute string or ribbon, a hand's width below the flower heads.

Cut stems carry water, and wet tissue goes limp and tears at the fold. Wrap the cut ends first in a damp paper towel and a small plastic bag, then wrap the tissue around everything. The flowers stay fresh on the drive, and the paper stays crisp.

Color does the rest of the work. Our gradient packs hold 112 sheets in four shades of one color, so a cone can run from pale on the inside to deep on the outside. Warm orange shades carry sunflowers and marigolds. Blue tissue makes white and yellow flowers look brighter by contrast. For a single stem or a small posy, one 14 x 10 sheet rolled into a narrow cone is enough, and the whole thing fits in a hand.

Flowers handed over in person can stand in an empty gift bag with a fan of tissue around them, which keeps the heads upright and leaves the bag behind as a vase holder for the ride home.

Choosing a color and a finish

Your bag and your occasion decide most of it. Tissue should either match the bag closely or contrast with it on purpose. A near match, like navy tissue in a royal blue bag, reads as a mistake.

Solid colors carry most gifts. The 14 x 10 sheets come in packs of 320 to 330, either in mixed assortments of 20 or 40 colors or as one color, from Kraft Brown and Navy Blue to Silver and White. Kraft Brown tied with jute string and a kraft tag reads as one material from top to bottom. That is why it carries rustic weddings and farmhouse holidays so well. Gradient packs hold four shades of one color and suit a fan, because each sheet in the pinch can be a different shade.

Finish changes both the look and what happens after the party. Our metallic tissue (86 sheets of 20 x 14) has a pearlescent finish in shades like Rose Gold, Teal and Silver. Glitter tissue (120 sheets) carries iridescent sparkle in white, black, blue or green. Gold print tissue (100 sheets) mixes five foil patterns, including stars, stripes and polka dots.

Weight matters when the bag is pale. Standard tissue is 14gsm. The gold print, metallic, buffalo plaid and fall packs are 17gsm, which hides the gift better in a white or clear bag. Every one of these packs sits on the Koogel tissue paper shelf, alongside the rest of Koogel stationery.

Tags that stay on and stay readable

A tag tied to tissue falls off. Tie it to the handle of the bag, the string around a box, or the knot at the narrow end of a flower cone, and it arrives where you put it.

Write the name before you tie the tag on. A flat tag on a table takes a ballpoint pen or a marker cleanly, while a tag already dangling from a handle swings away from the pen. Our kraft tags have a matte surface that absorbs ink fast, so a name written in marker does not smear when the tag goes straight into a bag.

The hollow Christmas kraft tags come 140 to a pack, in seven laser-cut designs with 20 of each: reindeer, snowflakes, trees, candy canes, gift boxes, holly and ornaments. Each one measures 1.8 x 3.4 in. The cut-out shape lets whatever sits behind it show through, so a red tissue fan behind a reindeer tag turns the reindeer red. Pick the tissue with the tag in mind.

Color coding saves time on a big gift list. Our four-color Christmas tags come in bright red, deep burgundy, green and dark forest green, 25 of each. Give each family member one color and the gifts sort themselves under the tree.

Tags you make yourself from paper last longer when the stock is heavy enough to hold a hole without tearing. The cardstock weight guide walks through which gsm survives a punch and a string. Every ready-made tag pack is on the gift tags and wrap shelf.

Reusing tissue, and which kinds go in the paper bin

The weeks after the gifts are opened are when tissue piles up. Michigan's environment department puts the scale plainly: Americans create 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day than any other time of year.

Reuse comes first, and tissue reuses well. Smooth each sheet flat with your palm, fold it in half and then in half again, and store it in a folder or the sleeve it came in. Sheets too creased to show at the top of a bag become the crumpled bottom layer next time, which is a job no one sees. A fan pulled out of a bag in one piece can go straight into another bag of the same size.

When a sheet is done, the finish decides where it goes.

Simple and plain tissue paper is typically recyclable with other mixed paper in curbside programs

Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Recycling holiday giftwrap

The same page says glitter can contaminate the recycling process and tells readers not to recycle tissue paper or wrapping paper with glitter on it. It adds that most curbside programs will not accept metallic wrapping paper, and that gift wrap covered in excessive tape cannot be processed in standard recycling facilities. The EPA's Mid-Atlantic office gives the same advice for wrapping paper and names plastic coatings, ribbons and glitter as materials that are "not typically recyclable."

In practice, plain solid tissue goes in with mixed paper where your town takes it. Glitter, metallic and gold print tissue go in the trash after you have reused them as many times as they hold up. Peel tape off before anything goes in the bin, and cut the jute string off kraft tags.

Programs differ from town to town, so read your local list. For scale, the EPA counts tissue paper among paper "nondurable goods," and in 2018 that group, not counting newspapers, had a recycling rate of 43.1 percent.

What FSC-certified materials means on our packs

Three of our tissue packs say they are made from FSC-certified materials: the solid 20 x 14 sheets in 120-sheet packs, the gold print tissue and the glitter tissue. FSC is the Forest Stewardship Council, and its certification follows the wood fiber in a product back to where it came from.

The council uses three labels, and each one says something different about the fiber inside.

FSC 100% labels identify products which are made of 100% virgin material from FSC-certified forests.

FSC US, What do the FSC labels mean?

Two more labels cover mixed and recycled fiber. Products under the FSC MIX label are made with a combination of FSC virgin fiber and/or recycled materials with controlled virgin fiber, while the FSC RECYCLED label marks products made with 100% recycled fiber. Controlled wood, in FSC's own definition, is material assessed and found to be at low risk of coming from unacceptable sources, such as illegally harvested wood or forests being converted to plantations.

Two questions are easy to blur, and keeping them apart helps when you shop for wrapping. FSC answers where the paper came from. Your recycling program answers where the paper goes next. Our glitter tissue is made from FSC-certified materials, and it still belongs in the trash at the end of its life, because the glitter, not the fiber, is what recyclers turn away.

So when the wrapping itself matters to you, look at both: an FSC claim for the source and a plain finish for the bin. Our solid 20 x 14 sheets carry both, in 13 colors from Kraft to Light Purple. They sit with every other tissue pack, tag and filler in the Koogel range, so one order can cover the bag, the fan and the name on the handle.