wintery gift tags

I love packaging up gifts, maybe even more than the gift itself. My favorite is to get all festive in my gift giving for those that care about the presentation. Am I doing this for my six year old son? Umm...no. Sorry, dude. For a good friend? You betcha. The problem for me is my ideas are big and my time is itty bitty. I mean, I'm good to remember the gift in the first place and then I want it wrapped all cute? Forget about it.
But then, maybe don't.
My master plan is this: do all the things you can in advance. That includes making cute gift tags with supplies that you might already have on hand. It's easy to do assembly line gift tag making and it's bonus points if you don't have to buy a lot extra to do it. (But you *may* just have to buy this stamp set because the adorable factor is OFF THE CHARTS.)

Simple supply list here: tags, paint and stamps. To make a snowy background, drop paint on the tag

and then drag it across the surface with like an old gift card. You may have to drag over it a few times to achieve the look you want. Random is good here.

Another way to add a simple background to your tag is a snowflake effect. It's just a pencil eraser dipped in paint.

After the paint is dry, stamp away. You can mix up stamps, ink colors, and embellishments. This is a fun way to use up bits and pieces in which you only have a few of an embellishment pack left. Here, I've used cork snowflakes and digital elements from the Studio Calico shop. You can see I stamped the bear on old book paper and cut him out. Love the look.

And if your stamped bear looks cold, give him a scarf for crying out loud. I mean, I can hardly stand it. And he's waving "thanks" to me. It's just too much.

A little baker's twine and your tags are ready to dress up your gift giving this year. Or maybe use them to top a card or a scrapbook page. Either way, you'll have the coolest tags on the block :)