Celebrations: holiday clearance {repurposed hanukkah candles}

Christmas ornaments, lights and garlands aren’t the only thing you can find on clearance after the holidays. I spied these bright colorful Hanukkah candles during the holidays and was thrilled to find them on the clearance shelf after New Year’s.

Inkling: gift card wrappers

We recently celebrated some family birthdays and I {gasp} ran out of time and bought some gift cards to use as last minute presents.

Don’t get me wrong – I love gift cards but I felt a little guilty not finding the perfect personal gift or making a special gift basket. Rather than stuff the gift cards into store bought birthday cards, I tried to make the packaging extra special.

Parchment paper, doily and twine – pretty and feminine.

This one was hard to photograph because of the glare but I wrapped the gift card in navy blue card stock and used polka dot cello wrap as an outer wrap. A plain binder clip held the tag.

Rustic and shabby – the paper is from a home décor catalog. It’s a photograph of a rug. A strip of fringed fabric and silk flower hold it all together.

Origami paper and a contrasting ribbon wrap up this gift card with an Asian flair.

The gift cards ended up being a hit or at least the gift wrap was a hit. 

Thanks for visiting!

Carolyn

I happily link at the parties listed here and 

   

Etceteras: twine hearts

More Valentine fun. I made these little twine wrapped hearts with the intention of making a garland. I’m still figuring out how I want to finish up the garland.

In the meantime, I thought they would be fun to use as embellishments for packages and other goodies.

Give your sweetheart a message in a bottle. Use a recycled bottle and add a fun label. Cork the bottle with a rolled up piece of corrugated cardboard.

 

This label is courtesy of the Graphics Fairy. If you haven’t visited the Graphics Fairy – head on over. The site is brimming with vintage graphics, labels and clip art.

The twine wrapped heart also makes a nice embellishment on a gift package.

Now, I need to finish up that garland.

........................................................................................
This project is linked at the following:

                                 

Etceteras: homemade ribbon

I received a gift at Christmas that was wrapped with beautiful pink and red variegated ribbon. I saved it, rolled it up and put it in my ribbon jar. It would be perfect for wrapping Valentine goodies but I don’t have enough.

Solution… make your own ribbon. Ideally, if I do this again, I’ll buy a spool of white grosgrain ribbon. For now, I went a little more homespun and used white cotton fabric strips – raw edges and all.

To make this variegated ribbon, I cut strips of white fabric and rolled them up. I dipped one end of the roll in a small bowl filled with water and red food coloring. Once the food coloring started to bleed up the fabric roll, I took it out and placed the roll in a tin pan. I dripped undiluted food coloring onto the roll and let that bleed into the fabric. I unrolled the strips and let them dry.

I’ll use this ribbon on cello bags filled with Valentine goodies and other small packages.

I also used this ribbon on a fun craft project. Come back tomorrow and check it out.







................................................................................................
This project is linked at the following: