Saturday, December 22, 2012

Merry Christmas Lovely Blog Readers: free printable gift tags

Tip: If you make a present pretty enough, it negates the fact that you just wrapped up a package of socks and tried to pass it off as a real present.  Muah, Ha Ha!

 So, I've been on somewhat of a Christmas gift tag making binge this year (who knows why.. maybe because I have never made nice printable ones before).
 
And maybe I was a little inspired by my good friend Julie, who made these ADORABLE tags that I snatched up at the school craft fair.  
 Because when I have lots of projects hanging over me, I think of more, and less urgent ones to do to procrastinate the ones that are harder.  I'm brilliantly stupid and efficient like that.  (oh yeah, and I can't work on secret things when my kids are awake anyway)  First I started with (shhhh) some darling ikea wrapping paper owl designs that I totally just scanned in and digitally filched Ikea's artwork.  For non-commercial purposes... but still my conscience was miffed at me.  Because its not like I don't have artwork I can use... so I made up some Ted ones and printed four of them on label paper (4x6), so I could turn them into sticky tags. 
Freaking cute owls Ikea.  Well played.
Then for some stupid reason, I thought I needed a whole NEW design to print on cardstock for hanging tags.  Why, I do not know.  My brain gets broken when it has too many things to do.  Plus when I do make nice tags, I have always drawn a quick holly and berry sprig on each tag.  So... the thought was to do a really nice prismacolor version that I'd scan in and use forever.  You know, being lazy and all.  So I did. 
But after I printed them all out, I realized that, silly me, I could have used the Ted ones on different paper (and different layout, which I had to do anyway).  (But I guess nice to have one that was holiday themed anyway.)  Yeah, lets just call it Christmas brain, instead of temporary idiocy.  But since it is an image that only works for Christmas, and took me a scant afternoon to do, and I already did all the effort for me, and I'm in the giving spirit... why not give it away?  So I am.  You can have it.  I mean, for personal use.  If you sell it, or re-use my image or change it or take off my copyright, that stealing.  And, rude!  But you won't because you are a nice person.  So, Merry Christmas!!! 
layout/format is for a standard size (8.5x11) piece of paper/labels/cardstock

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Homemade Christmas Present Roundup Vol. 1

These are a smattering of presents I have made in years past.  Not to brag, but to share ideas.  Some were made from others tutorials, some I just improvised and some are both: tutorials that I have improvised on.  (Note: the captions are links to the tutorials..)  Happy present making!

DVD travelling art kit


No tutorial for the capes.  Just a hemmed rectangle of fabric, with an elastic casing at the top, and a craft foam applique.  Really easy.

Lunch Money Cuff tutorial: Lemon Squeezy Home

bowtie: Lemon Squeezy HomeHat: Sew Liberated

Wall-E instructable, EVE instructable.  Both modified
I know I have more... but I figured I would publish this now, and find more later. Instead of saving this as a draft yet again, because I don't need any more unfinished posts.  Thus the vol 1.  Maybe I'll get around to vol 2 this year, maybe not.   If you ask nicely I probably will though!

 (You can also check out my other tutorials..)