Pretty Christmas tags with Notes & Things

I’m not very traditional with my Christmas colours. I like to use turquoise, pink and purple on my tree! I decided to do an advent for my partner and I this Christmas, mainly because I picked up loads of little bloke gifts for him in the Next Christmas sale last year. So I picked up enough small stuff for both of us for 25 days. I bought white paper gift bags and our advent will be a bag every day, which has a separate gift in for him and me (with different wrapping paper to distinguish). Then I decided to make pretty tags for each day. I did think about just randomly picking a bag every day but that’s not really the point of an advent is it! I wasn’t drawn to any of the Christmas lines available this year, too much red and green for me but the thought of using up some of my Crate Paper Notes & Things did get me excited. So I set about decorating my tags using that collection. I pretty much used everything from the Notes & Things line and even cut up some of the packaging to use things printed on the back. I also used 2 things from the new Maggie Holmes Open Book collection, the Floral Ephemera & Leaves and also the Accent & Phrase Sticker Sheet. Like last month, I’ve used the Freckled Fawn Dew Drops Glitter Arrow Stickers in Gold because they’re just awesome, I just bought a second pack! The numbers I used came from various sheets of Thickers and the gold diagonal stripe you can see on many of the tags, is some washi tape I bought in Japan which just works so well with Notes & Things. There’s something very similar in the shop, have a look at My Minds Eye, Record It, Charmed Decorative Tape or I definitely think this tape from Freckled Fawn, Gold Triangle will work perfectly as well.
Here’s all the tags together, they’re so pretty! Notes & Things is such a gorgeous collection and seriously, I just threw these things together. The whole collection works so well, it’s just so easy to put together. I always loved the Blush collection from Basic Grey if you remember that one but Notes & Things has pushed that off the top spot.

I’ve picked out a few tags to focus on and talk about. Day number 2 has one of the kraft tags from the Mixed Tags pack, the tags in that pack are so worth it, they are lush. I layered up a tag and vellum shape from the Ephemera Pack, there’s a vellum shape under there as well and the ‘2’ is from the Chipboard Shapes.

 
The tag for day 3 has a strip from one of the tear off strips on the bottom of one of the 12×12 sheets of paper. The butterfly is from the sheet of Standouts Layered Stickers. The Happy Day tag is cut from the Memo Paper, but the one in the 6×6 Paper Pad. Yes, I am that pedantic that I cut apart the tiny little words and tags on the 6×6 sheet! I usually cut apart any cut apart sheets of paper and put the cut outs in little trinket bowls on my desk when I want to work with them. I’d found the ones I’d cut from the 12×12 sheet so handy, that I cut up the small ones on the 6×6 paper too! So the smaller rectangles (the pink ‘remember’ and bue ‘monthly newsletter’) on this tag are from that 6×6 paper too and I’ve put them on foam pads for more interest. The 3 came from the Chipboard Shapes.

 
Day 14’s tag is super simple, but I think it’s really effective. The washi at the bottom is from the roll I bought in Japan. I wanted an element I could use on a few of the tags to tie them together and washi is perfect for that. The tiny little tag under my numbers is from the Ephemera Pack and the gold glittery foam Thickers are from an older Maggie Holmes line I think? They work so well with Notes & Things, I love how all the Crate Paper lines all work so gorgeously together and I can report that I just got a delivery of the new Valentines line, Kiss Kiss, and it works in with Notes and Things brilliantly, they look beautiful! The typewriter on this tag is from the Chipboard Shapes sheet, isn’t it cute!

 
Tag 16 and I used a tag from the Mixed Tags pack. It was exactly the same size as the white shipping tag I was using for all the rest but I didn’t want to replace the white with my printed tag, so I just attached the printed one to the white one using the twine. My number 16 is using old Delights Foam Thickers. The gold chevrons are from the Chipboard Shapes sheet and the butterfly is one I put together myself, using papers from the 6×6 pad and some of my butterfly punches. I loved the layered butterflies in the layered sticker pack so I decided to make my own!

 
Last one and day 17 is one of my favourites! I used the washi tape again, this time I put two pieces together. I layered up a white tag from the Mixed Tags pack and then some of my cut outs from the Memo Paper in the 6×6 Pad. Over the top I popped a butterfly from the Standouts Layered Stickers.

 
Here’s a picture of my tags on some of the white paper gift bags that house the little presents for each day. I will line them all up on the dining table so we can open one every day. I’m not showing you a photo of that cause I’d need to clear off the dining table, dust & polish it before I could take a photo to share in public lol!!!

Now when each day’s bag is open and finished with, I don’t plan to throw my tags away. I think I’m going to do some kind of December album using the tags for each day. I don’t really know what kind of album I’ll do, whether it be a diary of what happened each day (cause we don’t have kids so Christmas is pretty low key around here), or more of a Christmas album where I talk about what things I like about Christmas. But I know it will look really pretty with these tags on each page and I’ll probably decorate a bit more using Notes & Things (and then have to stock up on a bit more cause I can see me loving this collection for a long time to come yet!).

 
I’m using a Handbook from Studio Calico for my album. I’ve also used some of the cards from the brand new Notes & Things Project Life Value Kit (it’s beautiful by the way), some cards from the new Speciality Themed Cards – Golden because they fit right in with Notes & things and the Best Ever word I used below, is from the new Dear Lizzy Serendipity Royal Foil Word Thickers which again, are awesome and such a pretty rose gold colour.

So welcome to December everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful festive season! I’ll take my opportunity now to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!
I’ll be back with my next post on January 1st 2015!