This tutorial will help you wrap your boring gift of towels, into a fun, delightful, present that everyone one your list will want to receive! Normally towels are wrapped into a cake form for wedding or baby showers, but this tutorial will help you wrap them to look like peppermint candies.

All you really need are towels and a few basic supplies normally used to wrap presents. I used big, white bath and hand towels with some red washcloths. You can actually use tissue paper for the inner color if you don’t have any colored towels. I recommend white towels with red or green accents for peppermint candies. If you wanted to do other candy colors, pink, yellow, orange, light blue would also work and would be very whimsical. I wouldn’t try it with un-candy like colors like burgundy or sage green-the effect would totally be lost. If you decide to do it anyway-please don’t say I gave you the idea!

Hand Towels and Wash Clothes

If you have both bath towels and hand towels to wrap, start with the hand towels until you get the hang of it! It is much, much easier to roll the smaller hand towel and if you start with it, then the bath towel will be a breeze when you get there!

1. Supplies: towels, tissue, scissors, ribbon, stapler, cellophane wrap (available from craft store)

2. Lay out your towel. If it has a monogram that you want to show off on the end product, you many need to adjust the way you roll up your towel, depending on the placement of the lettering.

3. Starting lengthwise, roll up your towel into a tight cylinder. It needs to be tight, but not too tight. It may take you a couple of tries until you get the right feel for it.

4. Next, roll up your red towel in the same way. If you are using paper instead of a towel, skip down to the bath towel for directions.

5. Place the red towel on top of the white and center.

6. Now, start at the short end and roll both towels up together, forming a coil. Hold it TIGHTLY! It may help to have a helper. (Make sure your ribbon and stapler are handy-once you start this step, you will need them before you can put the towels back down)

7. This is the trickiest part of all-wrapping around the ribbon the coiled towels to get it to stay in place! Pull it as tight as possible and if you have a helper it will be a lot easier. I try and balance the towel between my body and the table because if you let go even for a second, it will uncoil and will no longer look like a peppermint candy!

8. Slide the tip of the stapler under the ribbon and staple the ribbon together. I usually do two staples just to make sure. I staple the first one just to get it to hold so I can let go, then I pull the ribbon even tighter and staple again.

9. This is what you should now have:

10. Now, you are ready to wrap up your candy towel. Measure out a piece of cellophane and wrap around the towel with short ends meeting and long ends extending past the towel.

11. Tape the cellophane together very tightly all across the towel so there are no gaps. I tape it together, and then pull and tape again as tightly as possible. Remember, you are trying to make it resemble a piece of candy, so you want it to be taught.

12. Tie ribbons on the ends. Striped ribbon adds to the “peppermint theme”, but really, any coordinating color will work. I like to add those shiny stars on the wire too. It really catches the light and gives it that little something extra.

13. This is what you should now have:

Bath Towels

The bath towels start out exactly the same way, they are just bigger and bulkier, so you have to adjust your rolling a little bit. If you do it too tight, it will look distorted and if it’s too loose, then it won’t like a candy. Plan on experimenting a little bit with this one.

Also, I did not have any colored hand towels to make the colored swirl. So…I tried using a piece of red tissue paper, and you know what? It worked out great! I used tissue paper, but I think a ribbon, or even colored paper or folded wrapping paper might work too.

1. Because the bath towel is so much bigger, I started by folding it in half and then rolling up each long end to the center. When your rolled ends get to the middle, just roll them together.

2. Now, if you have colored towels to form the swirl, follow all of the directions from the hand towel section to roll up your towel. If you are using the tissue paper, tuck your tissue paper into the fold and on top of your white towel.

3. Carefully, and holding on tightly, roll up the short end to form the coil.

4. Wrap with the ribbon and staple together just like in the hand towel instructions above.

6. Wrap with the cellophane and tie off with ribbons.

You have just finished wrapping your boring towels into a fun and fabulous gift! Great Job!