Toasty Tags!

I love to receive a handmade gift...and if the wrapping of the gift reflects the giver has made a special effort in not looking mass produced...it makes me feel all toasty inside. Sometimes the presentation is just as much the gift, as the gift.

Well, I will often make the gift...but I stink at packaging it. To spend time on the wrapping...the card...the bow....not going to happen. This basically says, "I'm a traitor to the handmade pledge." Generally, I just slam the widget in one of my 28 recycled/re gifted gift bags, add some tissue...and hope I can tell the recipient it is from me, for I refuse to pay $4.95 for a card.

2008 is my year of "Packaging Presentation". What has caused this epiphany is currently unknown, perhaps I'm sick of waiting to do everything at the last minute...maybe I'm cheap...possibly I've collected so much miscellaneous pieces of quirky paper I need to purge...perchance I'm getting nostalgic in my old age...the possibilities are not worthy the contemplation. So, in an effort to be somewhat clever, I've made a stack of funky gift tags for all my packages in 2008.

The key for me is doing it and putting it in the gift drawer for future use. So, this morning, I did it! I made 25 cute, quite simple, yet obviously handmade gift tags for my future gift giving transactions. I simply punched holes in monopoly cards, bingo cards, tickets, old milk caps and several vintage playing cards; attached a cute ribbon....and neatly stacked them in a box in my gift drawer. Simply flip them over, write your greeting and garnish a gift with toasty goodness.