Inspire Me Monday: Easy Creative Packaging

Happy Monday friends!  I hope that those of you in the US are now recovering from your turkey coma, and now many of the rest of us turn the corner to full-on Christmas prepration!  For today’s tutorial, I thought I would spur on your creative juices with some practical and easy ways to do some Holiday or Christmas packaging.  In December we often give small gifts of thanks and appreciation to teachers, coaches, youth leaders, friends, and service people.  It might be a small gift, but pretty packaging goes a long way to making the gift feel more special.  

So, today I have 3 non-traditional gift packaging ideas for you.  A monochromatic gift card envelope, a rustic paper bag and a glitzy tin.  

Monochromatic Gift Card Envelope  

I remembered a tutorial from ages ago that I learned which is an easy way to make a fancy gift card envelope.  You’ll need only a couple of supplies, a plain envelope, a crimper (you might have to dig that one out of your stash!), some ink, sponges and a stamp set.  Here I’m using Power Poppy’s Sassy Succulents stamp set. 

I began by ramdomly stamping the hen and chicks image onto the front side of the envelope in a teal ink.  

Next sponge the envelope with a softer ink.  I used a combination of SU Pool Party and Baja Breeze.  

Next flip the envelope over, stamp and sponge the envelope and SEAL it shut.  

Then cut off about 1 1/2 inches off the top of one side of the envelope.  This will be your “lid”.  Set the lid aside.  

Now grab the larger part of the sealed envelope, with the cut side of the envelope on the right or left, set it in the crimper and run it through the crimper.  This will give it texture, but it also “shrinks” the bottom part of the envelope so it can become a bit of an envelope box.  This way the lid can fit over top.  

Here you can see the bottom of the envelope that’s been crimped is a bit smaller, now it can fit inside the top flap.  

Now, to create a place to put your gift card, cut a square of card stock, add a small strip of sticky adhesive to the top of the square and set it into the top of the lid of the envelope.  When you have a gift card just attach it to the square.  

To help the edges of the crimped bottom of the envelope fit into the lid, I used a corner rounder to the top of the cut side so it will fit in nicely.  

Here’s how the envelope looks put together.  I’ve added a lovely tag made with Marcy’s brand new digital stamp from the Wreath sets called Wreath:  Succulents and Baubles.  I printed it in a softer teal ink and coloured it up with Copics.  Framing it all out with scalloped edge felt and a felt bow.  

Here’s the envelope open.   

And here’s a close-up of the tag.  I love the softness of the felt with the monochromatic look.  

Rustic Paper Bag

Next up, a paper bag!  Don’t underestimate the power of simple household things for packaging!  All I’ve done with this simple packaging is to grab a regular paper lunchbag.  I folded over an edge, added a fishtale pennant of burlap, and then grabbed some twigs from outside (put them in the oven for a bit to make sure there were no critters inside), and then hotglued them to the top of the bag.  

Then I took some of my rosemary (that’s still so hardy outside), hot glued it into the top, and then added a rustic tag made with another of our new wreath digis, Wreath:  Birch and Evergreens.  Bonus of this is that the rosemary really smells lovely!

A close-up of the tag, created simply with a scalloped frame, a woodgrain embossed background that I swiped some distress ink over, and then ripped the bottom, tying it with some rustic twine.  

Very simple and practical, and yet it looks so polished.  

Glitzy Tin
 

Metallics are so great at Christmas time, or for the New Year!  In our home, one of the gifts we make each year is our family receipe, homemade fudge.  We put it into silver tins like this so you already have a glitzy silver base for your packaging.  Then, I created a simple belly-band from gold foil paper, added some shimmery white ribbon, and then a lovely shimmery tag made with another of our new digis, Wreath: Felt Leaves and Fruits.  I glitzed the tag up with glitter pen, metallic gold pen dots on the fruits, and Wink of Stella on the black berries.  The whole thing shimmers, but you’ll have to use your imagination for me on that one, with the metallic black base on the tag it doesn’t grab the simmer on the fruits.  

A sweet little jingle bell and gold twine finish it off!  

There you have it, three sweet simple ideas using everyday items to make your holiday packages look even more special!  

This will be my last tutorial at Power Poppy for a while....I’m taking next year off from doing tutorials for some needed extra time in the schedule.  I’ll still be here designing though, you can’t get rid of me there! :)   Thanks so much for all your supportive comments over the past two years!  I know you’ll continue to be inspired by all of the Power Poppy team with Inspire Me Mondays!  

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