michellephilippi.com

DISCLAIMER: I am a hyper-prepared gift and gift-wrapping fool.
I am super organized about gifts and have Christmas and birthday and Mother’s Day and Easter (and every other occasion) gifts bought, made, or otherwise planned months and months – sometimes years – in advance.

I always like to do some crafty wrapping with my gifts too.  Don’t get me wrong – I do “regular” gift wrap too, but sometimes regular wrapping paper and store-bought bows get tired.  And too – sometimes there are those odd-shaped gifts that are hard to wrap.  Like lotion.
I found these Martha Stewart lotions online at Macy’s for super cheap and snatched them up for my husband’s aunts and my mother-in-law.  But they would be a little difficult to wrap with regular gift wrap.  Bags are perfect for odd-shaped things.  So I reached for these gorgeous gray Casablanca Middy Bitty Bags from Whisker Graphics and coordinating large gray gift tags.

I ran my gift tags through my Big Shot with an impression plate just to get a raised pattern on them for some extra interest and texture.

And then it was as simple as coordinating with a fun ephemera collection (I’ve used pieces from Fancy Pants Designs here) and layering it all up.

I also stamped a little on the bag in lieu of a to/from tag.  My finishing is done with Silver Metallic Divine Twine (also from Whisker Graphics).

And if you don’t have time for that, or you feel like you’re not crafty enough, just buy a pre-made tag and smack that on your Whisker Graphics bag.  Your gift will still stand out from the crowd!

Summer is here with all it’s vibrant yellows and oranges, and heat, God bless that dang heat.  Here in my part of the country we are in the midst of a 15 day run with heat over 100°.  So when I needed some gift packaging recently, naturally I navigated toward those summery colors.
I had some beautiful card fronts sitting on my desk that I had cut off and saved from handmade cards that were sent to me from friends.  And I thought they would go nicely with these great Casablanca Middy Bitty Bags in yellow.

I popped in my gifts (Kylie Jenner lipsticks because what else do teenage girls want these days?), folded the bag over, and secured it with some washi tape.

Then I adhered my card front with some bits of glue and finished it off with some coordinating Divine Twine and a white tag to write their name on them.

I love being creative with gift packaging, and getting extra mileage out of a handmade card that someone put time and love in to.

Today I’m sharing some gift wrap for odd-size/shape gifts.
Up first are some mermaid necklaces for my niece.  I could not find my Whisker Graphics Little Bitty Bags to save my life, so I had to improvise.

I took a Middy Bitty Bag in this fantastic navy and gold Casablanca pattern and cut it down a bit.

I kinda felt bad about cutting it down and having half the bag go to waste, so I decided to die cut the word HAPPY to use on my tag with the remaining part of the bag.

I wrapped my necklaces in some tissue paper, tucked them in to the bag, and then folded it down in sort of a pillowbox style.

I embellished a large white tag with my die cut HAPPY, some silver washi tape, and a little silver heart sticker.

I adhered my tag to the front of the package and finished it off with some Silver Metallic Divine Twine.
(I had started this project out with Gold Metallic Divine Twine in mind and then somewhere along the way decided to pair silver with the gold on the bag and went a different direction.)

My second gift is super easy.  It’s an iTunes gift card that I bought online and printed out to give as a gift.

I easily and quickly embossed a large white tag with a fun party pattern.

And then I attached it to a Bigger Bitty Glassine Bag with a pretty clothespin, and it was ready to be presented.

Today I’m sharing some quick and easy gift packaging.  One was planned, and the other was not.
I have some super-talented friends who enjoy sending happy mail and real mail just as much as I do and I hang on to their creations for a bit and then put them in the recycle bin.  I couldn’t seem to part with this watercolor card that my friend Tiffany made me and thought I might be able to use it on a gift sometime.

I trimmed off the cardfront and adhered it to front of a Pink Polka Dot Bigger Bitty Bag and then tied it off with some Gold Metallic Divine Twine.

A lovely addition to my mother-in-law’s Mother’s Day package.

Have you seen the movie Zooptopia?  I went with my kids to see it last year.  And my husband was so annoyed that we went to see it without him.  I missed it when it came out at Redbox, and my husband’s birthday is today so I thought I’d just buy it for him.  However, when the DVD came in the mail, the cellophane was coming off.  And I knew that when I went to giftwrap it, the tape would further pull off the cellophone and it wouldn’t look new.  Not a big deal, but one of those irritating things for me.  So I thought I’d crafty wrap it instead.

Gold Metallic Horizontal Bigger Bitty Bag, topped with a large white tag that I embellished, and finished off with some aqua Divine Twine.

This year I sent out a whole bunch of Mother’s Day cards.
I feel like we don’t send or receive enough real mail.  And I happen to know that there are some mamas out there that don’t get Mother’s Day cards (or recognition of some kind) from their own children for one reason or another.  So I just felt like sending love and sunshine to a bunch of mamas this year.  12 to be exact.

Because I was making 12 cards, I had to make it easy.

So I designed this cardfront in the Rhonna Designs app on my phone.

And for the inside, I made different sentiment panels and then I intentionally left space at the bottom of it so that I could add a heart sticker and sign my name. Super simple. I printed all pieces out at Walgreens as 4×4, adhered them to a 4.25 x 4.25 card that I cut, popped them in to an A2 size envelope and sent them on their merry way earlier this week.

Feel free to save and send to Walgreens the pieces below if you are in need of a last-minute Mother’s Day card.