Good morning! I am so glad I started a Year-Round Christmas Challenge: I am already losing motivation, you can probably tell since I am posting this on the 26th instead of the 25th ! Maybe glitter will help me get motivated. Glitter always helps!
Today, I’m going to share glitter-y Christmas gift tags and a frugal hint to reuse the tags. But first I must organize my wrapping paper, boxes, ribbon, gift tags, more ribbon….
What a mess! 3 tubs of wrapping paper, tissue paper and gift tags, boxes of bows and ribbon and recycled ribbon! It is hard to wrap when everything is a jumbled mess.
Unfortunately, I add to the mess. Each Christmas as we open presents, we toss all the paper, boxes, bows and ribbon in to a pile. Later, I sort through the pile: saving bows, ribbon, gift tags and sometimes large chunks of favorite paper. This year, I did not save any wrapping paper. As the kids get bigger, the presents get smaller, so there were no extra-large pieces of paper to save this year. I did save bows, ribbon and gift tags. I especially like to save and reuse the glitter-y gift tags. I love glitter!
This month for the Christmas Challenge, I’m going to make new glitter-y gift tags and organize all of it, so I’m ready for next Christmas! Or even birthdays!
Sorting through the mess of bows and ribbon is amazing! I wonder who saved the interesting item in the wrapping paper tubs? Couldn’t have been me!
Who would save wrinkled gift bags?
Very wrinkled tissue paper?
5 empty wrapping paper tubes?
A single balloon?
A full roll of duct tape?
At least I found 5 rolls of crepe paper for birthdays and a bag of old Christmas cards that I saved a few years ago to make gift tags!
Now I that I am done organizing, I have 1 very full tub of only Christmas wrapping paper (but don’t tell the husband, because it is still on my ‘to buy’ garage sale list!) I also have 1 tub of birthday paper, crepe paper and gift bags and a separate tub of only bows and ribbons.
The bows and ribbon seem to keep growing. One year, they were in a box with rolls of ribbon, but the rolls squished my bows! This year they had separate boxes, but there were too many boxes. Then, I thought all the loose ribbon and bows could live in a free frosting bucket with a lid, no need to purchase a new tub! If only they would have fit! Thankfully, after I sorted the wrapping paper tubs and recycled the empty tubes, I had an extra tub just for bows!
Now that I am organized-it is time for the fun part! Glitter!
I found many fun Christmas tag ideas online, but I decided to keep it easy and frugal. I will just recycle: cut-up old Christmas cards and glitter will make great gift tags!
I did not want to buy anything, or even use printer ink or cardstock paper. I also have many craft supplies, but decided to not use anything, except the glitter. This saves the craft supplies for other projects, and I really don’t need to use them. The gift tags made of old Christmas cards won’t match, but will look very festive with added glitter. I will also try to add glitter to my home made gift tags, to make them festive, too!
Even though I loved some of the cute online ideas, I decided against gluing on different items. I was afraid the buttons, pom-poms and toothpicks would fall off the gift tags. The grandbaby probably shouldn’t eat them, and I know the vacuum definitely shouldn’t eat them.
My gift tags have evolved over time. For many years, I just used stick on labels, cut up Christmas cards or pieces of wrapping paper folded like a card. This worked, but I wanted something more special, something prettier. But I also did not want to take hours and hours to make them.
Then one year, in a garage sale box of wrapping paper, I found some gift tags. Glittery gift tags. Some were unused; in fact the Noel gift tag is the last one I have from this great find.
While I loved the festive holiday sparkle, what surprised me was that some of them were used. And they looked like they were reused for many years. The glittery tags had names on them and holes punched in the corner, through the hole was ribbon. It was curly, curly ribbon that prevented the gift tag from falling off. The ribbon had tape, like it was taped to a present instead of the gift tag being taped to a present.
What a great idea! I could keep and reuse the gift tags that I like. The ones that are festive and sparkly, could also be festive and sparkly the next year- and the next! They wouldn’t get all covered in tape, like the ones I kept trying to reuse.
Now, I punch a half hole in the corner of gift tags. I use a regular hole punch, but I just don’t punch it all the way. This helps to hold the curly ribbon in the hole better. Sometimes, I pull a long, long length of ribbon through the hole so it will really stay on. The presents don’t move much though, so I have not had a problem with the tags falling off.
I have been saving and reusing Christmas gift tags this way for many years. I especially like the tags I cut from glittery Christmas cards. This year, since I am not waiting until after Thanksgiving to start Christmas projects, I decided to add some sparkle to my Christmas gift tags and make them more special with glitter.
Easy and frugal still works the best. I added glitter to some of the glittery card tags. Others, I just put a line of glue on one or two sides of the tag and then dipped it into glitter. I pushed the glitter and glue line with a scrap piece to keep the line crisp and even. The one I wrote ‘Noel’ on didn’t work at all, the glue line was thick and it didn’t look pretty. Oh, well. I liked the few added accents of glitter with the dipped edges better, anyway. And it was a lot quicker. I worked on the gift tags for one evening and I have a huge pile. They will look so festive and sparkly in December!
I might work on the glittery Christmas gift tags a few more nights, it was so fun! Eventually they do get wrinkled and wear out, so I will need new ones. I will enjoy using these in December, while I am wrapping presents- they are sooo sparkly! I am so glad I started this Year Round Christmas Challenge to work on those projects I never get to finish at Christmastime. I also hope you can find motivation to finish a few Christmas projects now, so maybe Christmas will be less hectic and more special and sparkly!
Happy Camping (or using the hole punch and glitter!)
Frugal Campasaurus