S.W.A.L.K.

"Sealed with a loving kiss" - the S.W.A.L.K. acronym apparently originated during WWII when soldiers wrote letters to their sweethearts back home. Just a nice thought to get you in the mood for a little Valentine's day romance!

On that note, I have a few little wrapping ideas for romantic gifts for you to try.

Materials to look out for:

- plain or patterned tissue paper
(try stationery/art shops, department stores or the supermarket)
- deco tape
- plain, striped or printed ribbons
(I got these from local fabric shops/haberdashery or a cake decorating shop)
- lace trims
- washi tape with hearts and other motifs
(I got mine from Paperchase - just noticed they currently have a 3 for 2 offer on washi tape!!)

I also re-used little scraps of fabric, tissue, ribbon and strips of white tulle fabric I had around the house. Nothing wrong with a bit of eco-friendliness on Valentine's.

Ideas

• Try layering different colours of tissue paper to get a pretty effect - I layered pink under red with a little flash of the pink left visible, or pink tissue underneath a white patterned tissue (mainly so that it's not completely see-through as white sometimes can be).

• Instead of boring old plain clear sellotape, why not try using cute patterned washi tape or another type of decorated sticky tape! You can even use washi tape on plain tissue paper to create really cool decorative effects.

• Create your own "ribbons" by tearing or cutting up strips of fabric - I found white tulle worked really well for this.

• Gifts can be tied/wrapped with all manner of ribbons, raffia, trims or twine and you could even try using two or more strands to get different effects.

• You can write little messages of love or draw romantic doodles onto red tissue paper with a white coloured pencil.

• Lace trims look lovely over coloured tissue paper - a nice way to show off their pattern.

• Even simple ideas can work well: try decorative washi tape on plain brown wrapping/parcel paper (kraft) or use rubber stamps to print on it & make your own wrapping paper!

Looking for more DIY Valentine ideas? Inspiration ahoy:

- Check out these cute printable cards/notes from Mochimochi Land

- A set of modern & colourful printable Valentine's day cards on the Papernstitch blog

- Or, for the Star Wars fan in your life, how about a Vader-y Valentine?
(Found via "Death Star PR"!)

Also check out my previous Valentine's blog post for even more ideas!

DIY Christmas Gift Labels

This is a quick and easy DIY tutorial for home made last-minute Christmas gift labels - a great way to avoid chaos on Christmas morning! I needed a way to label my presents but didn't have time to go out shopping for gift tags...so I came up with this simple and fun idea.

You will need:

- Pens (ideally ones which won't bleed)
- A sheet or two of blank sticky address labels

- Festive rubber stamps of your choice (or carve your own from an eraser/potato!)
- Scrap paper for blotting (ideally not newspaper)

- Ink pads or paint (ideally in festive colours)

...and last but not least:

- Some wrapped-up Christmas gifts!

It's really very simple, take a sheet of sticky address labels, choose the stamp you want to use, ink it up in your choice of colour (or you could use paint instead) and press onto one of the labels.

I found the easiest way to do it was stamp your chosen design (whilst still on the sheet), then blot off any excess ink with the scrap paper. Allow it to dry, then write your tag and stick to the relevant gift!

Repeat for however many gifts you have - et voilà. They are ready to go under the Christmas tree. :)

Merry Christmas & a very happy new year to all my readers!