Hello! Alexa here ...
When my children were little, I had an inner rule for myself about devising activities and games to do or play. As long as it took them longer to do than it took me to prepare and help clear up, that was fine. If it didn't, then it didn't happen. I feel the same about preparing things for Christmas; however, there is also a part of me that likes to add little personal touches, so sometimes that conflicts with my rule! However, here is one which you might like to have a go at, and takes no more time to make than the average TV ad break. It also provides a little bit of added (excuse the pun!) value to a gift. Just sit down with eight items:
- some pretty card or cards
- some plain or lined paper
- a coordinating ink pad
- a trimmer
- a mat
- a hole-puncher
- some ribbon. (Add a corner-rounder if you've got two add breaks to work in.)
I'm not a great fan of Christmassy tags, with holly and Santas and candles, and I'm not a huge lover of the red/green colour combination. This thrifty idea provides me with something a little bit different to tie on a present, uses up accumulated scraps, and is a nice extra little something. Take a piece of pretty card or a greetings/letter card - I love the colours and pattern on these, and there's enough red and green to be traditionally seasonal:
Trim into rectangles: as my cards were 14 cm square, I cut them vertically to get a 7x14 cm strip, then horizontally to get two which were 7x7 cms.
The remaining front strip, which was a single piece of 7x14cms, was folded into a 7x7 cm square also, and the plain back reserved for later.
Ink the edges. (You'll notice that at some point my orange ink-lid got swopped for the crimson one - didn't spot this till I uploaded the photo!)
Now fold each card cover out flat, and hole-punch twice in the fold for the ribbon to go through - eyeball it, don't bother measuring.
Take your plain or lined paper, and make some 'pages' for inside - these need to be rectangular (e.g. 7x14 cms) so that when you fold them in two, you have a square. Four or five are plenty - keep it slim. Slip your folded pages inside each other to make a little booklet, and then trim the right-hand edge a little - if you don't, they will stick out beyond the edge of the card cover. Pop them inside your card cover to make a little book, and open it out from the middle, place it flat on your mat, and hole-punch through the holes already made in the card cover. Don't bother marking them a pencil first - keep it quick and simple!
Next, thread your ribbon through from the outside and tie in a bow.
Cut the plain back of the greetings card which was left over, or use some scraps of white card, to make a smaller square or rectangle - just big enough to write a brief message. Hole-punch it, slip it through the ribbon and tie:
Don't go to lots of trouble making the additional tags - put the energy into the little notebook which will have a use beyond the day of receiving the present. The completed booklet/tag can be tied onto the string or ribbon of a parcel, and the tag can easily be torn off by the recipient when the gift is opened. Instead of a tag (perhaps carefully crafted and beautifully made) which is then usually binned, the person receiving the gift also gets a tiny and pretty notebook for popping into a purse, handbag, pocket or filofax, for shopping lists, to-do lists, reminders, thoughts, inspirational quotes they hear or read, a phone-number they are given ...
Other twists?
- inside, use left-over bits of those scrapbooking papers which are prettily lined, or stamp a journalling block partially onto the little 'pages'.
- use a variety of papers inside in white/cream or other colours.
- use a little white tag on the front - the sort you can buy in stationers in a bags of 50 or so. Or if you have some lying around from a Sissix or Cuttlebug die, use those instead.
- round the corners of the cover and the pages.
These are also great slipped into stockings, or tied to napkin holders if you are having a party and want your guests to have a little something to go away with ... Oh, and make sure you have kept one for youself! Happy crafting!