Meet Amruta Walvekar who tells you how to wrap your gift right at her workshops

Meet Amruta Walvekar who tells you how to wrap your gift right at her workshops

Amruta walvekar, who went abroad and did an MBA at Royal Holloway in Egham. After that, she worked with Sky TV. But after one year of it, I thought, ‘Please. This cannot be it. There must be more to life’. So she came home, and started wrapping gifts. She got her first big order in one day from an old friend. Then came the another, and another.

Amruta Walvekar’s father was not happy. “He had absolutely no faith,” she giggles, between juggling glittery pink ribbons and a rather intimidating hot glue gun. “He said, ‘Wrapping gifts? How can that be a career?”

Five years later, her company, Wrapistry, has fans across the country. She travels constantly, holding workshops, besides wrapping gifts for people in Pune, where she is based.

As the company grew, she quickly realised she needed a large office — finding space to wrap 1,000 wedding gifts can be challenging. That’s when her father stepped in. He let me take over his chemical factory in Pune. I have three girls working with me, and we’ve painted it red. It’s so pretty now: About 3,000 sq. ft .in total and really rustic,” says walvekar

At the Taj Connemara for a workshop, attended by about 25 earnest students, who ranged from their 20s to 50s, she demonstrates how to delicately pleat paper, twist ribbons into flowers and fold satin. Her tools are simple, chiefly scissors, glue and those indispensible rolls of double-sided tape. But her techniques are impressive; she swiftly folds, bends and teases reams of paper into pretty little packages. It is not easy, but perhaps that’s why her classes are so popular. The workshops which are almost always sold out challenge you to learn a new skill, drawing everyone from young moms who need to wrap children’s birthday gifts to burnt-out executives looking for a new hobby.

Of course, her father was not as easily impressed, so after a couple of years of wrapping, he insisted on her getting an MBA. But after three years abroad, when she returned in 2011, she found the market for wrapped gifts was just getting bigger.

While there were plenty of people doing the same thing, she stood out because her work was different. “she didn’t  like those typical trays people give out for weddings and festivals. She liked minimal classy stuff. She used to do hampers. Anything ranging from 100 to 250. Then when the orders started getting bigger, She began making boxes, which I would embellish.”

After two years, she decided to try something new. People kept asking me to teach them how to wrap gifts, so she held her first workshop at the Olive Bistro, Pune, in 2013. It was sold out in three days. So, she did three more workshops. That sold out too. Eventually, she got so many requests and that’s where she have been doing the workshops ever since.

In the meantime, she’ll still wrap a single gift for you! People are spending lots of money on gifts, so they don’t mind spending a little more to make sure the gift looks nice.”