Holiday Gift Tags Inspired by Anthropologie //

I was finally getting around to some of my Holiday shopping the other day and ended up stopping at one of my favorite stores -- Anthropologie. Once at the checkout line, the cashier was carefully wrapping up my purchases and bagging them.  I asked if they had any gift boxes and after tucking those into my shopping bag the lovely cashier tossed in some of their beautiful gift tags shown below.

Knowing that if I asked for a dozen more of them I’d look like (and actually be) a selfish jerk, so I decided to make some of my own.

Here's all you need:

Rosemary twigs - the Anthropologie tags just had regular twigs, but I have a potted rosemary plant

                             in my dining room that I'm desperately trying to keep alive for the winter as they

                             are not perennials in my part of The States. Plus, there's the AMAAAAZING

                             smell.

Glitter - I happened to use white and green.

Acrylic Paint in green

Your choice of glue

Thin wire in your choice of color - I chose green, gold and copper

Hole puncher

Scissors

Silver leaf

Paint brushes

Twine - on the thin side

Gold marker for writing

Heavyweight paper

First, strip off most of the needles on each rosemary twig.  Leave about an inch of needles towards the top.

Throw your extra rosemary needles in a soup or in your fireplace.  The whole house will smell incredible.

Next, take your heavyweight paper and cut them into long rectangles to fold into cards.  Size is entirely subjective. My only suggestion is to make them fold on the shorter side and big enough that your whole rosemary twig will fit inside.

Now we're going to paint our trees.  Basically it's one long zig-zag starting from the folded side and getting progressively wider towards the bottom or open side.

My trees compared to the original Anthropologie gift tag in the center

Once your painted trees are dry, throw on some of your glue in an aesthetically pleasing, half-hazard way and sprinkle on your glitter of choice.

Use that same glue and dab it onto the needle-free portion of each of your rosemary twigs. Take small quarter-sized pieces of your silver leaf and place it gently onto the glue covered rosemary sprigs.  Use one of your clean paint brushes to spread out the portions of silver leaf onto the length of the twig.

Silver leaf rosemary sprigs!

Now we add the colored wire.  The original Anthropologie gift tags actually have green thread wrapped around them, but I liked the idea of adding something with its own shine, so I chose thin wire.

I concentrated my wire wrappings on the center of each sprig.  Don't cover the whole thing otherwise the silver leaf will be obscured.

Copper wire wrapped sprig on the left and gold on the right.

That's pretty much it for the face of the gift tags!  Now all we have to do is punch a couple of holes in the back side for the twine to go through so we can wrap them around our gifts.

That's it!  Sign 'em and wrap 'em

[This is not a sponsored post and I was not paid to promote any company or product in this post]

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!

Have a safe and joyous Holiday, Everyone!

In lieu of a typical flower display I decided to use items and greenery that I already had around my house.  I used this antique wooden bowl of my grandmothers and put a wicker charger inside of it to raise up the apples and greenery inside.  That's a great tip for when you don't have a lot of materials to work with.  Then I just went out into my yard and clipped some white pine, boxwood and holly.  To finish the look I placed a luscious pile Macintosh apples in the center to tie in the red of my tablecloths.

Christmas Crystals ///

For the past couple of years now, my mother and I have had this collection going.  I'm trying to remember when and how it first started...  I think it actually began with my own personal mini Christmas tree.  Let me explain:

 

Refracted, twisted light...

Ever since I was a child I've been mesmerized, stupefied and hypnotized by Christmas trees.  I just love everything about them.  The symbolism, the beauty.  I love how every tree is personalized every year by all walks of life: little handmade trinkets from the children, sentimental bobbles from friends and family.  The color, the lights.  I love how everything twinkles when you walk by as thousands of bits of metal, glitter, tinsel, glass and crystal throw points of light in the periphery of your vision.  Simply magical.  In fact, I think the tree nicely encapsulates the best of Christmas.  The magical parts.  The small parts that, I think, sometimes get lost in the shuffle of Holiday shopping, deadlines, in-laws, and five-course dinners.

 

 

My mother shares my sparkle obsession.



Our newest additions

 So it was no surprise when, on a day much like this last year, I spotted from across a cluttered antique shop floor some old chandelier crystals.  Not the cheap cut glass kind, the kind that actually throw rainbows.  Even without the benefit of sunlight it was clear how brilliantly they shined.  They glittered between my fingers like diamonds.  I felt like a bandit!  I quickly scooped up every last cluster of jewel-like crystals into the make-shift pocket I had made with my shirt and scampered away to show my mother.  I found her quickly in an adjoining room and showed her my treasures.  Her glee exceeded even mine.  We both knew instinctively what these crystals were destined for.  The down side was that Christmas was at least 4 months away.  The up side was that each cluster was only $3.  Pricey if one had thousands to choose from, but in an antique store, where you're lucky to find more than 2 of any one item, $3 was a steal.  We left positively laden with riches.



Sunset rainbows.

Ever since then, we've been keeping our eyes peeled for antique chandelier crystals.  We've gotten pretty good at spotting them and telling the difference between glass and 'gold'.  Every antique store we visit, every tag sale -- we're looking.  Of course, we look for all sorts of one-of-a-kind finds good and glorious (pottery, vintage clothes, costume jewelry), but our favorites (the crystals for example) are always in the back of our minds.

 

 On our last outing to Brimfield, Massachusetts (every year there are 3 GIANT antique fairs in Brimfield Mass.  One in May, one in July, and one in September.  The whole show is so huge it takes up fields and fields of real-estate!) we hit the mother-load!  One seller sold nothing but antique chandeliers and loose crystals.  Oh my goodness, did we have fun!

 

We'll take our treasures and rewire them with floral wire and add them to the others for our tree this year.  They'll nestle nicely between our old Christmas ornaments, both handmade, store bought and gifted.

 

Over the years our tree has become quite full, but it's the hunting and creating with loved ones that's the fun part.  Then, my mother, father and I pour a glass of wine and enjoy reminiscing as we arrange them all over the tree every year.  It's a lovely tradition that I want to live on.  I'll do it with my children (when I have them) some day.  And every time I walk by my Christmas tree I'll smile, no matter the year.