Tag, you're it!

I've been feeling pretty smug about my Sock 'N' Soul packaging lately, as some of you can probably tell. It's almost completely homemade, 'cept for the box, and with just under 2 months to Christmas in a still credit-crunchy UK, I think pressies should be all about the personal touch. It's easy peasy to make stickers at home like the ones on my boxes, which you can use to label parcels with 'Dear Mum, Happy Christmas! With love from, Su', so your Gran doesn't open it to find the same box of choccies/ bath smellies/ Whittard's tea selection you got for both of them...

Or how's about 'Dear (insert boyfriend/ girlfriend/ spouse/ partner's name), Happy Christmas! With love from (it'd NEVER happen to me *angelic halo*)' so your Dad doesn't open it and wonder why you got him Saucy Charades. See? These babies can get you out of many sticky situations! 

You can turn them into gift tags, envelope & parcel seals - imitate the way girly shops like to wrap everything in pink tissue with an equally pink sticker, so you can plop it into a nice bag instead of finding the right-sized box for it, or giftwrapping an awkwardly shaped gift. There's definitely something about coloured tissue that adds a bit of luxury. Lip seals? hehe...not for dry winter skin...I mean, the ol' cutting-out keeps the family occupied *and quiet!* when everyone's home for Christmas.

If you get Christmas money and, err...buy yourself something in a box which you'd like to photograph for your thank-you letter, I put DJ in the spotlight of my trusty desk lamp to minimise the shadow.

About the stickers:

• Decide what you want on them; you can do one-offs or whole sheets of the same thing.
  
• Get yourself some boring white office labels for the stickers...8 to an A4 sheet is a decent size to work with.
  
• Enter the measurements of your labels using the Mailing Label Wizard on Word - NOT THE STICKER MEASUREMENTS - it's a fiddly task so this'll give you more flexibility and save you doing it more than once.
• Design your sticker. Coloured text can look very nice, but you can use logos, clipart, etc to be more fancy shmancy. Straight edges make life easier. It's better if the design doesn't fit exactly on the label, because your printer doesn't print exactly where you told it to; so always leave a spare few millimetres.
• Print the labels out with a good ol' inkjet.
• Cut with a penknife and ruler (or freehand if you REALLY need to distract the hungry hordes while Mr Turkey is defrosting).

Slice 'em nice

Store in a cool dry place.

Stick them on card, string 'em up and that's what makes them tags, or X'mas deccies if you're feeling the post-Nativity blues!

I'll tell you next year whether they keep longer than the Christmas pudding. Hehe.