Found myself talking about Christmas traditions the other day. There are some things that we do that i suppose i thought EVERYONE did…not so. I love hearing treasured traditions that bring people back to their childhood. Like Christmas Eve growing up, putting our jammies on and watching the plays and bloopers of the year on SportsPage. Classic. The traditions of what we ate…pepper nuts, stollen, star cookies, peppermint cookies, jam jams. And lastly, the way we did gifts. My mom never put our wrapped gifts under the tree. Ever. Christmas morning we would gather in the family room and each find our “spot”. Then mom and dad would disappear to their bedroom and come back carrying our presents. I remember the anticipation of seeing the wrapped gifts being laid before me… (well, except for that christmas eve that i snuck into their bedroom and counted my gifts out…tsk tsk..can’t believe i did that!!)
My mom also made sure each gift was beautifully wrapped. And that’s a tradition that i hope i’ve carried on. Maybe this is crazy but i like my gifts to match my tree and decor. It’s just my thing!
These tags are easy buy can be customized for whatever colour or style you’d like to go with. Don’t let the “DIY” part scare you…Really, if i’m saying it, it’s true. I wanted to be a bit more creative with labelling my wrapped prezzies and looked for ideas that might work well with my more rustic kraft paper that i chose to use this year.
Do this in assembly line fashion and you’ll find you can create a stack of tags in no time at all. If you’re like me you’ll get enthralled in the latest House Hunters or Alaska State Troopers (can’t believe i just admitted that!) episode and the time will fly by…
What you need:
~Cardstock cut into gift tag size (you can purchase these pre-cut or do it yourself, like i did!)
~Floral Wire
~Colored tinsel or greenery (i used boxwood, but herbs such as rosemary would work fabulously as well)
~String
~Stamps if you chose. **if my penmanship was nicer, i’d just free hand it!
Simple instructions:
1. Assemble your card stock into tags, hole punching the top. Stamp the “to” and “from” if you choose.
2. Cut floral wire and wrap around a string spool to form your wreath…really anything circular works..even the bottom of a glass.
3. Cut lengths of tinsel or greenery and wrap them tightly around the wire wreath. I went around twice with the tinsel to give it a full look.
4. Tie the wreath to the tag.
Use wire cutters to cut lengths of the floral wire.
Wrap the wire around a round object to give you the basic shape and then use your hands to re-shape and tuck in the ends.
Wrap lengths of tinsel around the wire wreaths. Tuck the ends into the doubled up wire.
Done!!
Do you have any gifting traditions? i’d love to hear what they are!
