You can't buy Christmas,it must be made. (my Mothers motto)
Rule number one...begin simply. The picure above shows heart shaped tags made for my Mothers birthday gift,very simple but effective.
I know this may sound obvious but it really is a great idea to encourage to children to make things for decorating the home. Creating gift tags,even making sweets to give as gifts. As a child my brothers and I helped our Mother make sweets of all sorts,the smallest would have the task of wrapping the sweets and of course there were always a few perks to go with the job!
It is never to soon to start planning Christmas,especially if you are going to do-it-yourself,as soon as children begin to become excited involve them in the small but lovely festive tasks to distract them from the everlasting television commercials.
Gift tags can be expensive and the cheap ones are almost always tacky. Much nicer are the home made sort and very easy to do, you will need.
A few pastry cutters, round,heart shaped,holly leaf or star shaped,any will do.
A hole punch if you have one,if not a roll of sticky tape.
A large sheet of card,red,green,gold whatever you like,small sheets are fine too don't worry if you only have white card.
Blunt nosed scissors
Thin string,wool or ribbon
Some felt pens or glitter pens
a small bottle of paper glue
Glitter if you don't mind the fact that you will still be finding it in your coffee in six months time.
Take your card and the pastry cutter of your choice and carefully draw around it,fill the sheet of card with these shapes being careful to fit in as many as possible. Taking the scissors cut around the shapes as neatly as possible .
W hen the shapes are all cut out punch a hole in each one and thread with this string.
If you have used coloured card this is all you need to do but if you wish you can decorate as for white card. Take one of the white card shapes and draw on it a snow flake or a Santa hat, an icicle of a Christmas tree bauble,any thing you like.
If you are brave enough to use glitter dab a little glue on to your tag them put the tag on a sheet of newspaper before shaking a little glitter on to the glue. Leave for a minute and then shake off the glitter,which can later be put back in to the pot.
When you wrap your presents choose a plain paper to show of the lovely tags.
My brothers and I always made special tags for our gifts to Mum and
Dad and we kept the a secret until the day. Of such joys are real Christmases made and remember home made is NEVER second best,it is the greatest compliment you can give to a friend or relative,the gift of your time.
No comments:
Post a Comment