Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Gift Wrapping

I have found creative gift wrapping to be therapeutic this year - taking my mind off my son's illness for a short spell. I found a wonderful blog with paper flower tutorials for these simple but effective paper roses.

The key to making your gifts look impressive is to layer the ribbons and embelishments. The more, the better. All the gift tags were downloaded from the net. Just google "free printable Christmas gift tags"

 I bought my sister some gorgeous fragrance from Durance, a French company. If it's French, it's got to be lovely, right?  I recycled the ribbon as it was too pretty to throw away. I made the flower from calico and cotton fabric.
I love the black and white theme. It always looks luxurious.  I topped it with black velvet ribbon and a scrapbooking flower.

Another idea Icame across was to use pearl and diamante buttons and brooches as a gift topper. You can find them on etsy.com


 I found some beautiful botanical paper, and topped the box with sisal ribbon, satin ribbon and faux leaves and berries.
 I actually found Marrimeko gift wrap on the Gold Coast. I covered an old shoe box and finished it with a handmade paper rose and black velvet ribbon.  I purchased whole large rolls of velvet ribbon from ebay at very reasonable prices.  Hand made Japanese paper works well for paper flowers.
I created this design from: grossgrain ribbon, mesh ribbon, gold cord, velvet ribbon (twisted and glued) faux glitter branches and handmade acorns.  To make an acorn you can use the cap from a real acorn, or if you live in the tropics like me, make one from paper clay. I used some plastic mesh to create texture on the clay. The stalk is a real twig. Paint the cap and stalk white and sprinkle with glitter. The acorn is made from white velvet fabric - simply cut a circle and thread a gathering stitch around the perimeter - place a small amount of fibre fill in the centre and pull the thread to gather - then glue to the cap.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Yet another tote bag


Fabric from Yuzawaya, Shinjuku.