Tuesday, December 21, 2010

A-gift-wrapping I will go...

The next two days are going to be filled with gift-wrapping for me, and I'm actually looking forward to it as long as it involves these 3 things: a little Love Actually, a glass of wine and kids in bed. When it comes to the actual trimmings, I usually operate under the Sound of Music philosophy: brown paper packages tied up with string. And then I top it off with the all-important tag!



I can't seem to get enough of large manila shipping tags. You can buy a 100 pack of these babies at Office Depot for about $6. I had thought about using double sided tape to stick the business card size enclosures I made to the tags, but then I remembered this little machine I've had sitting in the corner collecting dust. About 3 years ago, Reginald D. bought me a Xyron sticker machine, and I have yet to get the thing out of it's box. I think the "machine" part of the name intimidates me. If it just said "Xyron double sided tape dispenser" it probably would've been out of the box a while ago. But last week, I finally got the thing out:



Can I just tell you how addictive it is? It's so easy, and the adhesive is incredibly strong. Before you know it, everything in my house is going to be Xyron-ed!

Some other fantastic tag ideas I've seen around lately:



[left, The Haystack Needle Japanese Tape Tags; right, Sweet Paul]



[left, Eat Drink Chic downloadable tags; right, Ruffled -- These wooden discs would look great if you drilled a hole in them and strung some twine through it]

And a fun article in LMNOP:



How about you? Do you like to wrap gifts or would you rather pay someone to do it? Are you a wrapping paper junkie? Tag junkie? Ribbon junkie? All of the above junkie?

5 comments:

Kit said...

I love it, Alston!
I'm a ribbon junkie and always go get yards of colorful rick rack and other interesting things to tie packages. And it's reuseable, too! Good for decorating the tree, the walls, stringing Xmas cards...the works!
Merry Christmas to you guys! Loved your card, of course!!!

Heather said...

I like wrapping too, but I'm not very artistic and HATE the money spent on wrapping that could be spent more on the gift. (It's a hang-up; I know.)

This year I did color-coordinated, large cut-out initials instead of bows - Elizabeth decorated them by drawing Christmas trees. And on one gift I used a little sparkly ribbon and a mini cut out snowflake for a tag on a gift wrapped in snowflake paper. (I was proud of that one.)

Mostly I like getting the kids involved in the wrapping and decorating; it frees me from feeling the need to make them all look "perfect" - though I need to be more patient with tape getting stuck in the *wrong* places. :)

Bravehearted Beauty {formerly LLH Designs} said...

I'll be honest, I love creative packaging ideas, but I hate to be the one doing it. Wrapping is not my thing. Maybe its because I don't have an ounce of creativity left at this point, so I just want someone to do it for me (though I'd never pay anyone...I'd rather spend the $ on the gift itself!). Gift bags and unwrapped Anthropologie boxes are what you'd see under my tree. Nothing to post about, that's for sure! :)

Xo,
Linsey

Emily said...

I'm jealous of your scheduled evening with both Colin Firth AND Liam Neeson! Love Actually is one of my favorite Xmas movies.

Your photo-tags are such a simple and sweet idea. My girls saved the one that was on their bday presents from the boys. I'm not sure if we ever sent a thank you note for the gifts. We meant to, but if we didn't they were very much appreciated. Lily sleeps with the dog every night.

Hope you guys have a wonderful holiday!

alston said...

I love reading these comments!

Kit, I'd love to see how your packages turn out! They sound like they would be tons of fun to open.

Heather, I love the idea of the big initials! I also have a hard time relinquishing control of the wrapping supplies, especially the tape;)

Linsey, I hear you on the lack of creative energy at this point. I say there is absolutely nothing wrong with an Anthropologie box! Those are the best kind!

Emily, we should've had a neighborhood Love Actually party! Colin and Liam -- and Hugh! -- are the best. I'm so glad that Lily loves her dog!

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