One of the things I wanted to talk about today was my love of paper and paper-crafting. I am absolutely addicted to buying a few things ... one is makeup and bath/body products, and the other is paper and embellishments. This year was no different. I hand-made all my gift tags and cards this year, and co-ordinated all my beautiful wrapping to match. I also made my brother a gift for Christmas with photos I shot of him and his girlfriend out at a local conservation area this fall. (I fibbed and told them the photo shoot was a collection I needed of some portraits for a portfolio gig I was applying to.)
First things first, since I made them first, I will talk a little about the cards I made. These I actually did the majority of the work on during the summer. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time in the fall/winter because I'm so busy with hockey, so during my summer evenings after taking Fido out for his walk, a lot of nights I would come home and do a little cutting and gluing. I had amassed a gorgeous collection of Christmas items over the years, many of which I plan to include in my World Juniors scrapbooks, since the tournaments take place over the holidays. I usually hit up Michael's after Christmas and pick up some goodies on clearance, and this year was no different, as I added a beautiful paper stack (regular price 29.99, which I got for 8.99 less 25% on a coupon I had for 25% off your entire purchase) and some ribbon.
The cards I made were on card-stock with maching envelopes I picked up at Dollarama which were 6 for a dollar in red and silver. I used a variety of embellishments, everything from hand-made paper to felt shapes and buttons. I also tried using rub-on transfers for the first time, and found them a lot easier to work with than I had originally thought. It was great to experiment with some techniques I hadn't had a lot of experience with. The other thing I liked was that I could use more layering of items I wouldn't be as apt to do with a scrapbook just because I would worry about making the page too thick.
The bear was a little bit of a recycled idea from last year, I was dating a boy who I had nicknamed Bear Paws, so I made his gift tag a bear, and I liked it so much, I sketched another one (I'm not the world's best artist, but I thought he looked pretty good!). The one with the "country" look is the one with the stacked felt. I got these pieces from an embellishment kit I picked up at Dollarama for 1.25$ I got one that was all red and green, and another that was silver and white. I didn't really have any concepts for any of these before I started working on them, just picked through my items and messed around until I found a design I liked.
Once I had used up all my cards, I decided I would make some gift tags for my presents, and came up with a few that were quite cute.
I bought my wrapping paper super early this year, at Dollarama and the candy-cane stripe on at Walmart. I usually like to do a theme, and this year was no different. I picked up these red and white photo-real poinsettias and another photo-real print of decorated sugar cookies, which were primarily red and white with a little bit of green and brown accent. I had purchased gifts this year that would like nice stacked or packed in small boxes so I had a nice little stack for everybody and red and white ribbon on top. The gift above is one for my mom that contained a couple of books, a box with a hand-made scarf from a local artisan and some silver jewelry. The little one on top was a Christmas ornament, hand-made by a local potter that is an Oak leaf, something of special importance to our family, as our cottage is surrounded by monstrous Oak trees.
This is page one of three that I did for my brother's gift. The photos were taken at a local conservation area, where we saw a hawk eating a frog, and the toad my brother has in his hand in the centre photo. I purchased a whole slew of goodies at a sale Michael's was having with 40% off all "fall" items, and then used a 20% off your entire purchase coupon to get some good deals on different embellishments with leaves and acorns on them. I also had some dark brown swirl/squiggle chipboard glitter embellishments I got in a grab-bag pack that I had no idea what I was going to do with that worked really nicely for these pages. I bought three 12x12 frames at Dollarama for $2 (Michael's charges $16 for these) in a beautiful mahogany colour. He liked them so much he put them up on his wall Christmas morning.
I also framed an 8x10 of them for his girlfriend who hugged me about three times and thanked me at least eight times.
And as for the rest of my unreal wrapping job, which I said on a Facebook status looked like Martha Stewart wrapped them ...
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