Step one was to scrounge for pretty and useful items throughout the house. First I grabbed my brown card stock, second I went through my scrapbook paper and found red and green varieties, and third I said "ah!" and grabbed the new pack of a couple hundred coffee filters that I have in my pantry that I have no more use for (when my coffee pot died, I bought one with that fancy built-in coffee filter). Step two was to find things I could trace for consistent templates. All things gathered, these were the things I used:
- coffee filters
- card stock
- scrapbook paper
- pencil
- sharpie
- Elmer's glue
- scissors
- large bowl (used the bottom to trace the bigger circles)
- large can of chicken (used to trace the smaller circles)
- rectangular ring box (used to trace the name tags)
First, I traced and cut out all the name tags I needed. I kept these consistent and made them all the ring box's shape and all in the card stock. I set them aside when I was done.
The next couple steps don't have a lot of pictures. I used three different scrapbook papers that were either red or green in pattern. You can see them in the picture with everything I used, but one was a red base with small green polka dots, one was a red plaid, and one was a green base with different shades of green stripes. I used the different size circle templates to create different color and pattern combinations, and finished every combination off with a coffee filter on the outside. Here, it's easier to show you than to describe it:
I didn't tackle hubs' gifts today, so I only made six different name tags and it was easy enough to come up with a different color and pattern combination for each one. I really love how they turned out, and they definitely add a lot of bling to the gifts (which are wrapped and under my tree but will not be shared on here due to the fact that every person whose name tag is featured here reads my blog. You can wait, family.). I do have a couple things (one practical and one aesthetic) I would do differently - and will do differently when I wrap hubs' presents: the coffee filters are pretty and cool and I love finding a use for a couple of them since I have so many, but they're quite huge. If every present was in a decent sized square box, that wouldn't be so bad, but some of the gifts I wrapped today are a little awkward with such jumbo name tags hanging off all sides. I also would definitely use something smaller than the ring box to make the name plate itself. I love that it's a rectangular shape in contrast to all the circles, but it's just too big. Too big for the name, and too big for the circle sizes I used. I do love the card stock's color, though, and will definitely use it again to give contrast against the patterned scrapbook paper (ditto the coffee filters).
The design might need some tweaking, but I really like that I broke outside of a rut and tried something different and pretty this year with present wrapping. Normally I use fun, stock wrapping paper and write the name of the person it's for on the outside with a Sharpie. Not bad, gets the job done, but a little boring. And even though it's a present and whatever wraps it will be destroyed in just a couple weeks (ah! a couple weeks!), I love putting thought and sentiment into the gifts themselves, and I like the idea of doing that with the wrapping as well. This year it's plain silver wrapping paper or plain gold wrapping paper, and these name tags. Thanks for yet another craft inspiration, Pinterest.
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