I’ve been bringing a ton of holiday cards your way lately, but today let’s shift gears a bit and talk about gift tags and packaging!
Friends, I get positively giddy about gift wrapping. It’s one of my favourite holiday traditions, and this year – this past weekend specifically – I had a ton of fun wrapping, tying bows, stamping, embossing, tag making – it was a crafty extravaganza and I’m excited to show you a few things that came out of it.
First up is this cute little box made with The Stamp Market Gift Card Box Die. It’s perfect for 6×6 patterned papers. but in this case I had some leftover Merry and Bright 12×12 patterned paper, so I used a piece of that, along with glitter cardstock for the ribbon and bow. I used double-sided adhesive to assemble the box (literally took less than 2 minutes!) but for the bow, opted for a hot glue gun just to be sure it would stick and successfully make it through the mail without coming undone. I’m sure you could absolutely do this with another less-intense type of adhesive, especially if your bow isn’t made of glittery cardstock, but I wanted to be rrrreally sure!
For the little tag tucked under the bow, I heat embossed a sentiment from the Merry Gift Giving stamp set in silver. On the opposite side, I stamped a little ‘Open Here’, which also comes in the same stamp set.
Next up is a whole bunch of tags, big and small. A couple of months ago I took up crochet as a quarantine hobby. Thankfully, I seem to be much better at it this time around than I was back in Grade 8 when I made my first attempt in Home Economics class. Some of the gifts I’m giving this year are handmade by yours truly, and words in The Stamp Market Best Gift Ever stamp set were perfect for this. For the larger ones, I embossed ‘handmade from the heart’ (also in silver, to match my gift wrap) on heavyweight cardstock, and attached the tags with some silver fabric ribbon.
For the smaller crocheted pieces, I used a smaller tag and a “handcrafted from the heart” sentiment from the bonus stamp set that was being offered at the time these holiday items were released.
Annnnd just because tags inside a present aren’t quite enough, I made some tags for outside the presents too! The Merry Gift Giving stamp set was again, my go-to for this (it’s a beauty!) and I used the dies that come in the Gift Card Box Die set to cut them out.
I attached these embossed tags to the ribbon wrapped around my gifts, adding some mini Christmas bulbs and sparkly tree and ‘JOY’ die cuts as well.
Finally, a few gifts got some extra little love notes inside. These were made using the Simon Says Stamp Mini Interactive Envelope die, which not only comes with a baby envelope and heart, but also a die to make a mini card to put inside. I’m excited to use this one again around Valentine’s Day!
Alrighty, that’s a (literal) wrap! I’d love to hear – do you like to make your own tags and gift wrap of any sort? Do you have a preference for this vs making holiday cards? Personally, I love both. Making all of the things I’ve shared here were a really fun way to mix it up, and I hope this post gave you a few ideas and inspiration for your own!