As a crafter, I tend to get a little caught up in the make-it-myself moment.
I mean really, why would I use store bought gift wrap, cards or bows when I can spend all afternoon trying to make it myself?
Case in point – big bows. I had some very sad looking ribbon bows that I used in my inside holiday decorating for years and years. Each year I said I’d buy new ones, but when I went to the craft store, I’d hold back thinking “How hard could this be?”.
Based on my morning, I’ll go with “kinda hard, actually.” I googgled and Pinterested (is that a word?) and found several tutorials and videos that really looked promising. I found some rolls of ribbon in my stash and set about learning this new fun skill. And ended up time after time with little wads of ribbon, not big beautiful bows.
I’m not really sure where it all went wrong – each video or picture tutorial started out good, but then sure enough, I’d get to a step that I just could not make happen. To be fair, when this happened the third time, I really started losing my patience, so tutorials four and five had zero chance of working.
Mr. SuzerSpace suggested an outside walk might be a good thing (I think I was sighing a lot), and when we came back I found a new video I had missed before, and it was a keeper.
Smaller bows I’m pretty good at -my go to resource is this great tutorial from How About Orange and I make these all the time. This one is from a set of digital printable paper, but honestly these turn out really lovely if you just make them from magazine pages, or one of the seemingly hundreds of catalogs you are probably receiving in the mail right now.
Easier still are gift tags. You can use leftover wrapping paper, a small rectangle of card stock folded over or download a printable set (I just happen to have some listed in my Etsy shop 😉 ). These add a nice finished look to any gift, and while it’s pretty easy at our house to figure out who gets which gift, if you are in a gift exchange or part of a larger celebration, it helps to eliminate confusion.
Pin this so once you’ve finished up your shopping and are ready for the gift wrapping you’ll have a few sources for gift toppers.
This post will be linked up at some of these link up locations.
