All Wrapped Up

Merry Christmas Eve! This morning begins my two most favorite days of the year and while there is still a lot to be done before I host Christmas Eve for our families and pack up the presents for tomorrow’s festivities, I hope to get a few minutes every now and then to step back from the craziness and enjoy everything I love about Christmas (including helping myself to a large sample of the chocolate covered pretzels I make every year.. 😉 )

While my list of favorites during Christmastime is never ending, picking out my wrapping paper/tissue/ribbons for the year and actually wrapping the presents would be near the top. There’s something about a perfectly wrapped present (or a gazillion) for our family and friends under our little tree that puts me in the mood. I swear I could sit for hours wrapping presents in front of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ for the 19th time on ABC Family (Refusing the ‘freeform’ name. Is anyone else annoyed by this?). 

This year, I wanted to add a little creativity to my gift tags. It takes a little longer than the sticky tags, but it was totally worth it and added a personal touch to each gift. I was all about brown paper, plaid, twine, and a little gold glitter this time around. I picked out some plain kraft paper gift tags (here) to decorate. I wandered over to the stamp aisle to look at the Christmas stamps and picked one that says “Merry & Bright” (one of my favorite lines during Christmas). I had a black ink pad at home as well Modge Podge and some (Okay, A LOT) of leftover loose gold glitter from DIY’ing my wedding decor. 

I love the look of just a small amount of glitter added to something plain to make it pop. I sponged a very small amount of Modge Podge on to the end of each tag and then dipped it right away in to the glitter. After letting them dry overnight, I used my new stamp. From there, I wrote who the present was for/from with a thin black Sharpie pen. It took just minutes longer than the normal stickies (I still used some of those too! I found ones that matched my plaid paper 🙂 ) and the gifts are all sparkling under the tree. I have a lot of the kraft tags leftover so with a couple different colors of loose glitter these are perfect to save for birthdays or showers too! 

My chocolate is melted and the pretzels are ready for dipping so it’s time for that sampling before the craziness begins. I hope you have a truly wonderful holiday spent with your family and friends. Merry Christmas!

–TB