How much more uncreative can I get with a title? Oh well; I couldn’t figure out a more stylish way to describe the contents of this post.
I usually like to give small packages of baked goods and other edibles to people in my life that I want to thank during the holiday season. Thankfully, my finals week was not particularly horrific this year, and so I had time and space to bake before leaving school for the break. Taking inspiration from The Gifted Blog, I decided to try and make my wrappings a little classier (and more economical) than they were last year. I used only things I had in the house already, with the exception of a secondhand cookie tin that I bought at the Salvation Army for about $0.75, scrubbed out thoroughly, and then used to package sweets. Here they are
Gift #1 is actually neither edible, nor a thank-you gift. It is an Angel Tree gift:
My friend R and I picked a tag off the tree at church and bought our present together. Since she drove us to the store, I volunteered to wrap it. Since the tag (which had a purple satin ribbon and is not in the picture for reasons of privacy) needed to be attached to the top of the gift, I made a paper purple paper rose to match, and went with an overall silver-gold-ivory theme for the ribbon and paper. I gave the rose a touch of sparkle at the edges of its petals using metallic prismacolor pencils, then sealed it with Mod Podge, and wired it onto the ribbon. The tag was slipped in under the ribbon just before I brought it back to the church. The ribbon is actually salvaged from a birthday gift that someone gave me in September, and the paper is from a roll that I originally bought to wrap wedding presents (I make a point of never buying paper that is appropriate to only one type of occasion). I was pleased with myself for having the idea to criscross the stripes on the top package with the ones on the bottom. I think it adds a little visual interest.
Gift #2 is a gift for R, who gives me a ride to church every week:
I made her Nigella’s pistachio fudge (which actually ended up becoming almond-pistachio fudge because I did not have enough pistachios). The box is actually a recycled ham container (I began saving the boxes our lunchmeat is sold in back in November, and used another one of them to package some cookies I made for the friend who drives me to bible study — unfortunately, I didn’t have time to take a picture of that gift before giving it). You might also recognize the twine from last year’s Valentine’s day gifts; I have actually quite loved the rustic touch that it adds, and have used it on a lot of baked-good-gifts since. I’m almost at the end of the roll. The tag was made with a flocked tree that I cut out of a piece of scrapbook paper, mounted on kraft paper (which was itself salvaged from inside a roll of wrapping paper) and glued onto a rectangle cut from the back of one of last year’s Christmas cards (they came in a pack; it was one of the cheesy ones I didn’t end up using).
Gift #3 was for my advisor and his family:
Not particularly pretty, but I wanted to show off the tags, which were cut from circles of ivory cardstock and the cut-off bits of trees at the edge of the same paper I used to make R’s tag (one above). Starting at the RH most side of the picture and going around clockwise, there are: linzer cookies filled with raspberry jam (I forgot to take a picture, but I made some of them into fun Christmas shapes to amuse his kids), fudge, and a small loaf of pumpkin-cranberry gingerbread. The linzers are packed into an old, washed-out mushroom carton. I tried to use a gathered-curling-ribbon technique I’d seen in Real Simple, but I think my ribbon was a bit too broad, and it didn’t come out quite as I’d envisioned it. Nevertheless, I stacked everything into a gift bag with a snowman in it and slipped in a card, and it ended up looking tidy enough to be presentable.
Gift #4 was for our department’s administrative assistant. First, an interior view:
Fudge, Linzer Cookies, and Simply Recipes’ orange poppyseed cookies. Wrapped up in tissue paper with parchment circle linings to prevent oils from soaking through the tissue.
Exterior:
Closeup of the Bow:
Packaged in a secondhand cookie tin that I scrubbed out and gave new life to, with two kinds of satin ribbon, and a matching tag made with remnants of the same card I used for the backing of R’s gift tag, silver origami paper, and light blue cardstock.
Finally, Gift #5, which is a redo of something I did last year:
I made little paper sleeves with holiday greetings for individual Ghirardelli chocolate squares, and left them in my classmates’ mailboxes. This year, though, I expedited the process by drawing and layout out everything on my computer first. I then just printed the sleeves on the color printer at the library, sliced them up using a paper cutter, filled in the “to” and “from” on each tag, and taped it around a square of candy.
And here is my gift to you – a printable .pdf document with the same sleeves that I used. Feel free to print, cut out, and use them for your own personal projects (they are made to fit around a Ghirardelli chocolate square, but could probably also be wrapped around other candies):
Winter Penguin Candy Sleeves (Adobe .PDF)
I’ll be back later with a room decor update, and hopefully some photos of the Christmas gifts I plan to make while at home. For now, though, it’s off to do some more work on my thesis. (It really never ends, does it?)
Happy Holidays, everyone!
BRAVO!!
I am seriously impressed. It takes a special effort to make gifts (like the yummy baked goods you made), and even more special effort to package them up nicely. I am so proud of your reusing/recycling efforts, too!
I’d love to post about your cookie tin – may I?
Charissa
Thanks, Charissa; sure thing!
p.s. the original photos are in this album, if you want to download larger versions:
http://picasaweb.google.com/IrisALaw/Crafts#
Yay! I’m finally back from vacation and approved all your photos for the reader gallery. Thank you so much!
I will highlight some reader pics this week, probably Thursday.