it's a wrap

Don’t you love a well wrapped present? I do, I love the way it adds another layer of care to a specially chosen gift.

I enjoy wrapping presents too. I like coordinating the giftwrap and card, and occasionally dressing it up with ribbon or a bow. The year before last I designed and shared my own gift tags.

One of the things I love the most about buying handmade is the wrapping. Don’t you think? I’ve rarely received a parcel from a maker that wasn’t wrapped with care and individuality, and a beautiful piece of string! And I love buying cards from artists I know and love. I have a bit of a collection as you can see, though I find it hard to give them away, as you can see!

You won’t be surprised to hear I am one of those annoyingly slow present openers who carefully removes the sticky tape, carefully unknots the string, and tries to save the paper!

I was a bit sad this Christmas that I didn’t get to spend as much time and thought on my wrapping as I’d have liked. I had grand plans to make some wrapping paper and gift tags using an inkpad and stamps. I’ve done this before with potato prints when the kids were small but it has remained one of those projects that I always mean to get too but run out of time.

So this year I am starting the year as I mean to go on. I got the stamps and tags out and some crispy new brown paper and made a start.

One of my sister’s in law is a great wrapper. She always personalises her parcels with string and stickers and layered wrapping. Her presents are always distinctive. I’d like to be more like her. Another sister in law always has the perfect card. Carefully chosen especially for each recipient, mine are always perfect for me, and I always end up saving them.

In line with my resolution to have my presents more organised this year, I bought four brooches from local maker Polli's sale last month. One for each of my four sister in laws’ birthdays this year. I’m feeling smugly organised. With that purchase out of the way I'm going to get them wrapped and tagged, ready to send out. I might try to buy some little gift boxes for that extra touch. Oh and these little shoes bought ages ago from Melissa Wastney that I've had tucked away were wrapped and tagged and gifted to a precious new little girl on the weekend!

To inspire me I've also started a new Wrap pinterest board to collect images for inspiration.

I’m also ahead of the game for Valentine’s Day with these special wine boxes sent to me by Pack Queen. I love the way they dress up a simple bottle of wine for gift giving, and the different colours make the perfect base for a bit of stamping. I’m going to personalise one with this newly carved heart stamp for Mr Flowerpress’s Valentine’s gift, a bottle of nice champagne which I’m hoping he will share with me!

How about you? Are you an organised present buyer and wrapper? And do you give Valentine’s Day presents? We aren't too fussed about it, but I'm lucky enough to get chocolates from my favourite local chocolate makers sometimes, and I always share!

a christmas present to you

The other day I got a beautiful surprise - a handprinted New Year's card from an online friend. One who lives far away on the wintry side of the world.

In my head I started composing a 'virtual' Christmas list, just supposing I was as thoughtful and organised as sweet Suzanne. It quickly started to become unweildy though as I added in all my favourite online friends.

So instead here's a small gift from me to you, a creative present of course! I made these Christmas illustrations a couple of weeks ago using cut paper and illustrator, it was fun and I quickly became obsessed and made a series. The perfectionist in me has been tweaking them in my spare time but now its time to push print!

If you're like me the last thing on your 'to do' list is often making gift tags and sticking them on  presents. Sometimes its even the night before, though usually I'm more organised. What I like about  print out tags is you can easily print more to match your other presents as needed, even last minute!

I've put these Christmas Gift Tags all together so they can be easily printed out on a colour printer on light card, either A4 or letter will fit them all in (same size or maybe smaller). I hope you like them! Download the pdf here (I hope!) and print them out for personal use as often as you want. No commercial use though please.
To see other creative christmas crafts look here.

I'm signing out of the blog till after Christmas, but I have a feeling Instagram is coming along for the roadtrip. (At least for now while we negotiate the new privacy rules.)

I wanted to thank all of you for reading, for sharing, for encouraging, for being inspired by my making (I love that!) and inspiring me, and for buying flower press stuff.

Happy holidays, I hope you get some long vacant stares into a beautiful horizon, a lunch or two that stretches long into the afternoon, a road trip with lots of sights and some new funny family legends, at least that's my wishlist!

my creative space - rainbow

When I saw this simple knitted softie pattern in Lamina's creative space last week I couldn't resist casting on (pattern here). I thought it looked simple enough that it would be a good easy project for the new knitters in the family too and they were all really keen. We spent lovely time knitting and chatting happily over the weekend and finished them in a couple of days. Both the boys picked up purl for the first time and I was close at hand for dropped stitches and glitches.
I was in charge of legs and ears but the design and bodies are all theirs (except for bunny, she's mine).
My boys have been making cranes at school this week too, and have learnt the story of Sadako and the 1000 cranes. Such a sweet sad story, its nice that it has come to symbolise peace and that her legacy lives on.
We made some more at home from coloured office paper with this tutorial and somehow ended up with a rainbow! I love the way it looks on my new dining room cupboard.
More projects at the clubhouse here.