I bought this book [shared with Jill Joubert although she never used it] from Grocotts' in the early 1990s: I would never deface it by actually 'punch and press' ing out the boxes. Instead I used them as blueprints to make my own boxes which, I must say, worked out very well - although they are a bit small.

The patterned designs used in the book are exceedingly rich and Victorian - even Georgian in some cases - and while very intricate are a bit too busy and the colours, although authentic, rather too livid for my taste.

The boxes are small but with patience can be doubled or more in size and used as prototypes for a variety of different shapes, making for a very different kind of wrapping. A marvelous project for youngsters in that they learn ot only fine motor control but calculation [by taking the sizes and extrapolating larger sizes] and they can have a whale of a time drawing patterned designs for the boxes. ( )