Packaging is Everything

Years ago I used to take a lot of time to create special Christmas paper (brown Kraft paper that I stamped and painted)  to wrap my presents in and make elaborate bows with decorations, but in the past few years it's been purchase the bag at the dollar store and stuff the gift in with some tissue paper. Well not this year. Since this is a handmade holiday, I figure the bag needs to be handmade also. I got the idea from a Pin on Pinterest to the Purl Bee's blog where they featured a tutorial for a 20 minute tote. If you want the instructions, which I pretty much followed, check them out Here. My handles are a couple inches shorter and the bag width is also a couple inches less.

Here is a picture of their totes, great fabric by the way.

Here is mine. I used left over holiday fabric. I didn't want to have to go out and buy fabric just for a gift bag so am using what I already have. These are great as they can be used over and over.

My next special thing besides the totes are the embellishments. I had painted tags a couple of months ago, see post here, to use and now I just needed a little decoration/ornament type thing. These are so super simple to make and can be worn as a pendant, charm or hung on your tree.

Soldered glass charms. I used microscope slides that someone had given me along with holiday card stock and some vintage images. I'm loving the ones that are the simple gold glitter embossed paper and am thinking I'll just have to keep this one for myself.

I think I'm almost finished making presents, but you never know what I'll dream up to make next. 

If you want to follow me on Pinterest, just click the button on the right. If you don't know what Pinterest is.... well you can go to their web site and ask for an invite or just leave me a message and I'll send you one. It's a great place to get really cool ideas for decorating, cooking, crafts, art, you name it, and it is probably there but it is also a place for you to bookmark all those things you find on the Internet that you want to remember or share which is called Pinning. It is quite fun and now quite addicting.

Well I have lots more to do tomorrow and this week to get ready but when I have a bag all filled and embellished, I'll post another final picture for your viewing pleasure. Until then, have a great week.

Fat Book Embellishments

For Art and Soul this year the theme is "In the Garden" and I volunteered to make pages for one of the Fatbooks that will be distributed at Hampton this year. Since this is my first one to participate in, I was feeling a little overwhelmed and wanted to get a head start on my design. I decided on 3 different page layouts (these are only 4x4 pages) and wanted to make most of the embellishments on the pages. The theme is so broad that I didn't have trouble there but did when it came down to actually putting a sample together.

Here is all the stuff, pages cut and front covered, pile of embellishments and the 2 samples I have completed so far.

This pages features one of my wire trees with a couple of purchased felt pieces.

I like this page. It has vintage flower packet images sized down, one of my tissue paper flowers and a couple of felt flowers.

Here is a better look at the trees. Not sure whether I will use the wire flowers....maybe on the third sample.

These are the vintage flower packet images. You can find them HERE if you want to download them yourself.

This are the tissue paper flowers with buttons and either a pearl or crystal center.

I had so much fun I decided to make some real flower packets as I had some flower seeds. These I will  add one to each page on the back as a gift to the receiver. I used the same image and fabric to create a small pocket, left the top open to insert the seeds and then sewed it up.

Now to do a little flower painting on the 3rd sample...maybe I'll use the wire flowers on this one.

I hope everyone is enjoying the One World One Heart blog event and giveaways. If you want to find out more about this great International event see my post from Feb. 1st. Oh, if you are a blogger, be sure to enter your comment on that page to get in on the drawing.