Pinspiration Monday: DIY Christmas Tags

So what were you guys up to this weekend?? It’s getting down to crunch time for the holidays, so I know many of you may have been out doing last-minute Christmas shopping. Or, if you’re like my dad who thinks “last-minute Christmas shopping” is the day before Christmas, then maybe you kicked back with your feet up watching a movie. To each his/her own 🙂

John and I spent a good part of our Saturday at his parent’s house and had a blast relaxing and visiting with his mom, dad and sister, Kate. After a delicious lunch of fresh deli meat on artisan bread, “the boys” (John and his dad) went out to work on fixing the horn in John’s truck while “the girls” (i.e. Mrs. Waller, Kate and I) stayed inside and put together piles of hand-made Christmas tags. Apparently John’s mom has been wanting to make her own tags for years – I’m so glad that she decided to do so this year and to include me because we had a (very productive) blast!

To get us in the holiday mood we turned on the Christmas music and then settled down to the kitchen table, which was spread end-to-end with Mrs. Waller’s assortment of craft paper, holiday stickers and glue sticks. I don’t even know how long we were at it, but when all was said and done we made somewhere close to 50 tags between the three of us!

I didn’t get any photos of their lovely creations, but after bringing my tags home I arranged them for a little photo shoot – There was no way I could let this project go without sharing the details with you.

But before I get to that, here are a few that I managed to grab from Pinterest as inspiration:

Source: Older and Wiser (bonus points for using a page from “Harry Potter” 🙂 )

Source: Not on the high street.com

Source: The Handmade Home

And now here are the tags I made:

Once I got the hang of things, I started most of my tags by using a precut tag as a template and then cut out a little pile of duplicate tags from scrapbooking paper. Then, using little squares of adhesive tape, I layered on the patterns to give them a little dimension. Some were pizazzed with stickers and others got the stamp treatment (see all about the bird stamps I used here). Lastly, I just popped a little hole out of the top middle for the ribbon with a standard hole punch.

In no time, we were whipping out tags like it was our business! In fact, it was even mentioned during out crafting that we should try our hand at a tag-making business – Maybe we aren’t quite professionals yet, but ya never know what the future may hold!

Below are some of my favorites:

We had a stamp that said “To:” and “From:” but it wasn’t very easy to get on straight…So I ended up hand-writing most of mine. I think the wobbly lettering sort of adds to the home-made quality – At least I hope so!

Photographing the one below away from all of the others made me realize that a little handful of the paper tags I made could be used for ANY holiday, not just Christmas. This one, with its blue and green color scheme, could easily be used for a birthday gift since it’s holiday-neutral.

Here’s the collection I was able to put to the side that didn’t necessarily scream “Christmas” and could be used for any gift:

I can’t wait to attach these to all the boxes and bags under our Christmas tree! It will definitely bring my gift wrapping to a whole new level – I usually just write “To: Mom, From: Carrie” in sharpie right on the paper.

We’ll be sure to let you know if we start our tag-making business 😉 In the mean time, I definitely encourage you all to make this a tradition! It is so much fun and could be just the thing to make use of any scrapbooking paper leftovers you might have.

Happy holidays!

Wedding Update: Birdcage Veil

So I think it’s high time I updated you guys on our wedding plans! I’ve talked about our engagement, the bird theme, our idea to use vintage plates instead of renting plain white ones and our AMAZING cupcake situation. Today, I want to chat about style.

I won’t say TOO much since John’s not to know the specifics, but my dress is of the vintage flair. To go with it, I wanted to wear a birdcage veil. We are forgoing a big ceremony for a private one with just our immediate family present followed by a big reception (we aren’t great with all-eyes-on-us, thus this compromise suited our style a bit better), so I didn’t need a big long veil with a train. A simple, short birdcage veil seemed like a better option for me.

If you are thinking to yourself “Huh?? A what??” here are some visuals I snagged off of Pinterest:

Source: BelledeBenoir

Source: Love My Dress

Source: PowderBlueBijoux

Welp, I decided that I would try to make it myself! You know I’m an all-out DIY gal if I can help it, so this seemed like a perfect project for me. I did a little internet researching and found that the best way to tackle the project was with a needle and thread. Here’s a supply breakdown:

  1. Needle
  2. White thread
  3. Ivory Russian lace
  4. A cear plastic hair comb
  5. A bright colored flower applique

I actually worked on this project with my friend, Savannah (you may remember her from this post and this one) – She generously offered up her dining room table for an hour or so and we got to chatting about life as I fiddled with needle and thread.

The first step was to cut the lace to size – I think I used about half of the yard that I bought. Then I sort of pulled the lace into pleats every inch or so to create a little half-dome if you will. After I got the shape the way I wanted, I simply sewed the lace onto the comb by running my needle and thread between the prongs/teeth of the comb. It looks like a MESS, but the lace was held tightly and I knew I’d cover up the thready chaos with my flower.

Lastly, I attached the flower applique using the same technique – I just sewed it right into the lace and comb using more needle and thread. The flower had several layers of petals, so I was able to sew through the bottom petals to attach is securely with no one being the wiser of the thread.

Finally, after a bit of trimming around the edges to give it a curved shape, we were all done!

The process was fairly simple and I think I learned a lot. I say “learned a lot” because I’m pretty sure this is going to be my trial run…The flower ended up being a tad small in proportion to the veil, so I think I’m either going to add more lace (and possibly feathers) to this one in order to beef it up a bit, or scrap it and try again with a larger applique. We’ll see!

Have any of you ever tried this before? Any suggestions?

OR, I could just give up entirely and buy a ready-made veil from an expert! While I lamented over my sort-of failure of a first try at Savannah’s house, she mentioned that her sister-in-law, Aury (who I mentioned here), has started her own enterprise with these vintage veils! Check out her Etsy shop, Love is in the Hair ( isn’t that name ADORABLE?!), here – I am seriously contemplating one of her gorgeous designs because they knock my socks off.

 

All of the designs you see are available for you to snatch up on her site linked to above – Don’t miss out!!

Hope you all have a great weekend!!!

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