Hello friends,

Happy Saturday!  What do you have planned for the weekend?  I will be finishing off some cards (hopefully) and if I do then I will show them tomorrow.  They are nearly done but I have one element still to add and I can’t decide what to do.  I left some testers drying overnight so I will see what they look like and audition them for the cards later today.

today’s art . . .

Today’s art is my Day 20 offering for Art Every Day Month and it is this hand printed gift wrap and tags.  It could be for Christmas or any other occasion as I have not used traditional Christmas colours or elements.  Mine just happens to be for Christmas presents, some of which I had to post off yesterday to make sure that they arrive before the big day.  Last year I made this gift wrap using a big roll of paper and some acrylic inks and I loved that and want to do it again but it gets very wet and needs quite a while to dry so instead, for these gifts, I made something a bit quicker.

This gift wrap is super simple and quick, and all you need is some printer paper/copy paper, some acrylic inks and a sponge.  I am using A3 sized paper (double the size of A4) and some Liquitex and Daler Rowney acrylic inks, and a round sponge, but you can use watered down acrylic paint, watercolour or even stamp pads.  I use acrylic ink because I have them already and I know that they are permanent which is good to know if your gift is travelling through the postal system and might get wet. I really don’t want the colour to run and spoil the gifts inside!

This is perfect if you are short on time and need something quick. All you have to do is dab your sponge into the ink and then dab it randomly on to the paper like you were stamping.  You can add them sparsely with lots of space in between or cover the paper with them, using second and third generation stamping – the effect is similar to bokeh.  I used some metallic colours to start with, the bronze was really lovely, and then experimented with some colours – green, turquoise and this gorgeous purple.

Since I had a lot of bronze and purple papers, I made some matching gift tags in the same way and then used a tag die to cut them out.  You don’t need a die to do this, you can just fold some card in half and cut it into a tag shape with scissors, but for multiples it’s quicker with the die and doesn’t hurt my hands.

I tied some baker’s twine to the tags so I could attach them to the gifts once they were wrapped.  I planned to wrap most of them with the purple and bronze papers so I used the purple twine.

Did I mention that my favourite was the purple one?  This is a gorgeous colour IRL, I will be doing more with this one for sure.


Here’s a look at some of the other coloured papers used to wrap the gifts – turquoise, copper and gold.

I didn’t change or clean my sponge during this process so some of the metallic ink was still on the sponge and I knew it would transfer.  I like the effect, it adds a hint of metallic over the colour.  You can see it in the turquoise package above.  If you don’t want that, use more than one sponge or clean the sponge well before switching to another colour.


Gifts in their boxes ready for posting (once I finish those cards!)

If you missed any November AEDM posts so far – check them out in the slider below.

Let me know what you think in the comments.   As always, thanks for reading!Ingredients
Gift wrap:  A3 printer paper, acrylic ink, sponge, Tags: card scraps, acrylic ink, sponge, tag die, baker’s twine

Challenges

Art Every Day MonthDay 20 

CountryView Challenges – Christmas Gifting – November Challenge

SSS Wednesday ChallengeMake your own background – 17th November Challenge

You might also like these November posts days 1-19 . . .

 

6 Awesome Comments (btw comment moderation is on)
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Corrie
Corrie
November 22, 2021 6:03 pm

Such a great idea and looks wonderful too ! Thank you so much for joining us over at Country View Challenges for our November Challenge ! Corrie x

Bleubeard and Elizabeth
November 20, 2021 11:17 pm

I love this idea. I often use my paper that covers my work table to stamp various images on it, then turn it into packages, but I never considered using a circular sponge. Great idea.

Alison Hall
November 20, 2021 9:30 pm

Love your inky wrapping paper and tags, they’re gorgeous Elle!!!

Wendy K
November 20, 2021 4:08 pm

What a fabulous idea, love them. Now you’ve got me off on another track.

Erika
November 20, 2021 2:20 pm

I love the colorful dots Elle. What pretty tags and gift wrap. I hope the recipients also love it too. It’s hard to believe it is just about time to get holiday things ready. Time is flying. Hope your Saturday is going well. Hugs-Erika

NatureFootstep
November 20, 2021 9:21 am

love this. It is beautiful and easy for sure.

GDPR Cookie Notice