Staples Gift Wrap Review

Believe it or not, Staples offers custom gift wrapping paper around the holidays (a few do during off-season time, but most only for Christmas), that have stock backgrounds like snowflakes or presents, and contain spaces where a picture of you and your family can be added.

The paper is also rather cheap, cheaper than printing a normal poster sized document on their wide format color printer (that is the only printer it can be printed from), and price wise is a good deal. Not to mention that it is definitely an interesting idea to create a custom wrapping paper that you can add your own pictures to. I really liked the idea, and after seeing the actual product, I still wanted to like it, but at that point it became impossible.

When I heard that Staples was going to be able to print wrapping paper, my initial expectation was that a particular stock was going to be used that emulated the feel, texture, and usability of normal gift wrapping paper.

However, Staples misses the ball here, as there was no special paper used. Rather, what Staples expects the associates to print on is bond paper. For those of you who do not know what bond paper is, it is practically the same as normal printing paper. Can you imagine having to wrap gifts with normal paper like that? It's a daunting task that just isn't worth it. But you know, I really wanted to try it, since I still like the idea.

I purchased a ten dollar segment, enough for a medium present, and tried wrapping. This paper had a mind of its own and just wouldn't follow my direction. Within a few minutes I ended up with destroyed paper that was folded in all weird directions, a headache, and out of ten dollars.

When holiday season comes around, don't bother ordering this service. While they make good custom holiday photo cards, their gift wrap and garbage. Also, when it comes to the actual printing, the bond paper is too thin to absorb all the ink. Have you ever printed a heavily colored picture from your inkjet and found the paper wet, saturated, and bumping from the high amount of ink inside it? If you know what that looks like, then you will see the exact same reaction from this paper.

I do not suggest, I even plead, that you don't get this product. Don't be fooled, keep your money and buy some other wrapping paper that you can actually use.