Deck the Halls

I love Christmas - have I mentioned that? I love decorating for it. I love making and buying presents for the people I love. And I LOVE making Christmas crafts! In fact, I've been so busy making Christmas crafts this year, that for once my house doesn't yet look like an elf threw up all over it! Yet, lol! The tree is up, but very little else has been unboxed yet and if I keep making new stuff I won't have room!

But yes, I made yet another wooden gift bag anyways! I'm in love with this one too. This would be why I've had an Etsy shop for months now and have never put a single thing in it yet - I make these things then can't bear to part with them! This one comes with a few little tips and tricks I'd like to share...and my signature not-so-great photography! I used more paper from the Romantic Collection from Prima - I know this line is supposed to be geared towards romance, but every time I look at it I just see Christmas! I edged everything with a gold marker from Sakura - it's a very subtle detail but adds a nice touch to transition to the interior. I painted the interior with a metallic green from DecoArt (they really do some fantastic shades of metallics!). The holly leaves and berry brads are from Making Memories. The original red just didn't work for me, so I used gold glitter Scribbles over them.

Scribbles vs. Stickles. I have been using these like crazy lately! Both kinds. Stickles are from Ranger, and once dry, have complete glitter coverage. Scribbles are from Duncan and are actually meant for fabrics. They come in dimensional regular colors, neons, glitters, metallics and pearls. And are less than half the cost of Stickles! The Scribbles glitter gives a random glitter pattern with plenty of the color showing through from underneath (which is why I used them for this application). Both definitely have their very distinct uses though so I keep lots of both on hand!

The rubons are from American Crafts, from the Christmas Book Two MiniMarks. What I want to focus on is the design below the words. I used two scrolly rubons. I also made a mistake and wanted to let you know how I fixed it! As I was twirling them around trying to get the placement the way I wanted it, I wasn't paying that great of attention to which side was up (ahem, here's my plug for using a good natural light such as an Ott Light or Daylight lamp - I have several and just didn't have one on, which would have saved me this step...). I put the first one down and began to rub and it was upside down. So part of the design was gone. I used a needle tool to remove the rest of the section to a joint where it would make sense then repeated the process on that exact same section out of the matching rubon. Obviously this won't work on words, but then again, who's going to get a word upside down anyways?