Advanced options
The wrapping rule: paper should go around the present with a 2-3cm overlap, and the ends should each cover about two-thirds of the side: if you can see more table than that, you're cutting long. Buy one spare roll: running out on Christmas Eve at 11pm is a tradition nobody enjoys, and January rolls keep. Foil and glitter papers usually can't be recycled: the scrunch test (stays scrunched = recyclable) sorts the pile.
What The Wrapping Paper Calculator Works Out
- Paper needed: presents x the paper each one takes, plus 10% for overlap and offcuts. A shoebox-class present wants about half a square metre once girth-plus-overlap and two end-folds are honestly measured; books and smellies about a quarter; board games and boots nearly one.
- Rolls to buy: the area divided by the roll's area, rounded up, with the equivalent length of standard 70cm-wide paper. Twenty medium presents is 11 m2, which is six standard 3m rolls, more than most trolleys guess.
- Don't forget: tape (about a roll per 25 presents), tags, and ribbon or twine. Tape famously runs out first.
- Overlap and offcut allowance (advanced): change the 10%. Careful cutters using the string-measure trick or one dry roll manage 5%; awkward shapes and keen helpers push it to 20% or more.
- Custom paper per present (advanced): work it out for a real box: (length + width) x 2 plus 3cm overlap for the girth, times width plus about 1.3 x the height for the ends, in metres squared.
- Presents in gift bags (advanced): takes those presents out of the paper count and prices the bags separately. Bags cost more per present (GBP 1 to GBP 3) but amortise across their reuse career, and tissue-and-bag is the awkward-shape amnesty.
- Paper cost and cost per present (advanced): rolls x the price per roll, with the cost per square metre and per present. Per-metre prices vary several-fold between sheet, 3m, 4m and 10m jumbo formats, and between September and the Boxing Day clearance that stocks organised households a year ahead.
- Left on the last roll (advanced): the paper you bought but will not use, and how many more presents of the same size it would cover. If it is less than one present's worth, a spare roll on Christmas Eve is still the sensible call; January rolls keep.
- Tape rolls (advanced): wrapped presents divided by presents per roll, with one extra recommended. Plastic tape belongs out of the recycling; paper tape, kraft paper and the scrunch test (stays scrunched = recyclable) solve the Boxing Day sort.