christmas, crafts, diy projects, gift wrap, handmade, handmade holiday, holidays

Gift Wrap: Day 4

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Today’s theme is Crafty Christmas, for those who are looking (or have time) to put in a little bit of handmade work into  their gifts.

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TISSUE PAPER: For this gift set I used tissue paper fringe in a few different ways.  For the Christmas tree, I shaped a piece of card stock into a cone (Christmas tree) shape, placed the gift inside, and then covered the tree in layers of forest green tissue paper fringe.  Note: If you need a bit of help with this, there’s some more instruction for getting the cone shape in yesterday’s tinsel example. I also layered pieces of green and gold for a lovely festive fringe curtain on one of the gifts. And, working in a triangular pattern (and starting from the bottom), I made a fringe Christmas tree for the other package. If you need any help on the fringe how-to part of this, please refer to the fringe tutorial from my Pug Piñata DIY.

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YARN: Last year I stumbled upon these yarn letters and immediately started crafting some for my holidays gifts. Festive words, created by forming pipe cleaners into words and wrapping with yarn, can add so much to a plain package. While I also made a Christmas tree for one of my gifts, another option would be to coordinate packages with the same yarn color.  To secure the words to packages, braid some yarn and use it to connect the ends of the first and last letter in your word, wrapping the braid around the back.

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POMS: Making pom poms with yarn is easier than you’d think. If you don’t know how to make them just yet, this tutorial from CreatureComforts is great.  For this set, I made three different sized poms to top my gifts with coordinating yarn. I wanted to provide a younger idiation of this as well, which I created with store-bought poms and yarn, creating a holiday lights display and a simple blue pom pattern.  If you’re going with this version, use hot glue to secure your mini poms to each package.
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TAPE: “Tape” is used loosely here, as this set encompasses multiple variations of adhesive, and using the word “sticky” just wasn’t working for me.  Double-sided tape can be placed on packages to provide an adhesive landing strip for paper confetti – which I made by hole punching red and white paper. Using Avery mail labels, I used a red permanent marker to color half of my label sheet and then hole punched small red and white holes with a hole punch that I adhered to two of my gifts in different patterns.  Larger round Avery labels were colored with a glossy red permanent marker and then stuck to another one of the larger gifts in a polka dot pattern. Another great option is washi tape, which I used for a couple of my gifts (see last photo).  Washi tape comes in many colors, patterns, and is super versatile, providing a myriad of options  for use.

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