It's A Wrap...

Every year at Christmas time, I cruise the web admiring all the different gift-wrap ideas.  I bookmark them, (this year) I "pin" them to my private board, I paste them into my idea book on my hard drive, and admire them all, thinking "this year...".  But when I start to wrap my gifts, I realize I've purchased the oddest collection of sizes and shapes to try to wrap...and away goes my dream of having a wonderful tree surrounded with packages wrapped with the same papers, all topped with beautiful bows and decorations. And I console myself with the idea that the wrappings will likely just be tossed in the trash bag in the frenzy of Christmas morning anyway, and merrily go on with my life. LOL

But the crafter in me just won't surrender completely...so I handcraft gift tags each year.  And it wasn't until last year that I learned that many of the people I gift to at Christmas actually save the handmade gift tags in addition to the holiday cards I send.  What a wonderful acknowledgement that is to a crafter!

This year, I chose to make chipboard ornament gift tags. And the best part? I can make them as lumpy as I want, since I don't have to be concerned with "flatness" for mailing.  I used Spellbinders' 2011 Heirloom Ornaments die as the base, cutting one from chipboard, and two from patterned paper (front and back) for each tag.  I used glitter sticks at the top of the tags instead of ribbon or twine...makes attaching them to gifts and removing them later so much easier.

Here's a selection of some of the tags. First up, a few of the "flowery" tags, decidedly for the ladies...

You may have noticed that some have a little "to: from:" tag at the top, and some don't.  If the ornament had a light-colored, subtle patterned paper on the back, I used a different "to: from:" stamp on the back of the ornament itself, as done here with the tag above:

Flowers just won't do for the gents' gifts, and for couples' gifts I wanted something a little less gender specific, so for those I used snowflakes and stars...

And because I always seem to leave a name or two (or three) off my list when I'm planning the number of tags I need to make, I made some that could work for either a man's, woman's, or couple's gift.  So here's a couple of those...

Thanks so much for peeking in for a visit. I hope you're having a great week, and having fun with your holiday preparations.  I still have a few more cards to make and mail...and a few more gifts to buy and wrap...and a few more decorations to put out...and a couple more visits with friends to enjoy...and, well, you get the idea. LOL