Friday, December 18, 2009

Christmas Quick Fixes

Just a few tibits today - I hope they might make the next week a little easier on you, or at least inspire you to be creative with supplies you already have in your stash!

I find that when I'm rushing around getting ready for the holidays it's beneficial to have a few tricks up my sleeves (quick fixes!) for holiday wrapping, sending and gifting.  There's never enough time in the day to squeeze in EVERYTHING you originally intended - so sometimes you need to work with what you have in order to get things done!


Quick Fix 1:  Scrappy Gift Tags

I always, ALWAYS forget about gift tags!  I don't make them, I don't buy them, I just completely forget about them!  When I was a little girl my Mum used to save all of last years cards and cut around the pictures to make large gift tags.  With a little inspiration from my friend Meg Herr (Hi, Meg!) I revisited her tradition with a twist this year...

All you need are some old Christmas cards, some fun punches, and ribbon from your stash.  Just punch out shapes from your cards (they don't even have to be centered, or entire images - I think they look best when they are a little off kilter!), punch a hole in top, thread ribbon through and you're done!



Quick Fix 2:  Sprucing up Christmas letters

One thing that I love about the Holidays is receiving Christmas letters from friends and family.  I also really enjoy writing ours - just because it gives me the opportunity to reflect on the past year.

In the past I've bought store bought pretty (EXPENSIVE!) holiday paper from the office supply store to run through my printer.  This year I had aspirations of getting some cream paper and doing some stamping and embossing on the letters.  On fifty five letters?!  Who was I kidding?!

Well my Stampin' Around Jumbo from Stampin' Up! came in INCREDIBLY useful.  I left enough space on the bottom to roll an image.  I used Christmas Chatter stamp and real red ink.  It hardly took any time at all to roll the bottom of each letter.  Maybe because of my helpful stamping buddy Oliver, shown above!


Quick Fix 3:  Origami Boxes

I had a couple of very small things to wrap - and of course the store was all out of small boxes when I purchased the gifts.  I just took some scrapbook paper (I used the Merry Moments Designer Series paper from Stampin' Up!) and put together a couple of origami boxes.  They are super quick and easy to fold - you can see my tutorial on these HERE.  Some ribbon from your stash ties the boxes up and you're good to go!


Thanks for popping by today - despite the rush of the holidays!  What are some of your quick and crafty fixes for the holidays?  Share with us in a comment below!

Happy Friday!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those are lovely gift tags - such a great idea for reusing old cards! I'm usually pretty lazy and make tags from scraps of wrapping paper, but they aren't quite as pretty as yours.

Stopping in from SITS.

McVal said...

What great ideas! I LOVE the Christmas letter paper! I wonder if I've got one of those in my stash... It's been a while... I might...

Unknown said...

thanks for the quick creative ideas! after spending so much time creating gifts, i often neglect to wrap them up all pretty - and there is truly nothing better than getting a present that is presented beautifully!

Caroline said...

Awesome ideas!! I love the repurposing the cards for tags idea. I have a friend who does that and they always turn out so cute. i like how you cut them into shapes--so pretty! That inspires me for this Christmas, as I have not bought a single gift-tag!

Meg@MegaCrafty said...

I love the cards and boxes. I'll be doing a reuse and recycled wrapping post this weekend and am going to link to this. Thanks Joanne!

Joanne said...

Thanks, ladies! And thanks for the link on your post, Meg, you have some FABULOUS ideas as well! :)