I have two approaches.
- If it can lie down on its side, I allow a generous extension of paper beyond each end. Wrap the paper around it and tape it. Tape it once in the middle and once near each end. Then gather the excess paper at each end like a Tootsie Roll, as August said, and tie each end with ribbon or yarn. Watch out that the first tie doesn’t pull the paper to that end. You may have to hang onto the center.
This is not a good solution for something that is large and/or heavy because the package will be unstable and awkward to handle. The paper will get smushed and may tear off. It is good, though, for soft things like slippers and things that are not quite regular in shape and/or can’t stand up.
- If it’s going to stand up on a flat bottom, I allow the bottom overhang be just a little more than the radius (i.e., a little more than half the width) of the cylinder. Then I close the bottom in a series of tucks that I think is my version of Les’s smashing it down.
For the top, I either tie it off Tootsie-Roll fashion (if I’ve left a lot of paper) or tuck it down and put a bow on top.
This also works well for bottles: allow plenty of extra and let the excess stand up. Tie a ribbon or yarn around the neck.
One variation I like, especially well suited to bottles, is to use a shiny paper, like the mylar wraps that are silvered on the back, and wrap two or three times as much paper as I actually need (that is, go around the object several times and not just once, so you have layers). Then after tying the top off, I snip the excess in long cuts to make a fringe. The last time I did this, on a bottle of champagne for a gift exchange, I wrapped it at an angle so the excess tapered down and the fringe thus went from short at the outside to long at the inside. Sounds fussy, but it didn’t take more than a couple of extra minutes.
I once gift-wrapped an office chair, and not only that, wrapped it in such a way as to conceal the object. Now, that was a challenge.
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