Thursday Theme: Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String

Less with the string, more with the brown paper.  But still.

Merry Christmas!

Okay so I'm a couple days late, but it is still the Christmas season until January 6th, so merry Christmas anyway.  I hope you had a good one, whatever you were doing.  Mine was great, and though I had absolutely nothing to show last week (I had been doing some sketching but that will show up later), I have two days' worth of gift wrapping to show this week.  Yep, it took me two full days to wrap gifts in my usual brown kraft paper.  Normally it wouldn't have, but this year instead of doing a tag for each box, I had the brilliant brainwave to decorate the paper itself.  Still not really sure why I do these things to myself.  And I put clues on all of Mr. Pocket's gifts (though some were kind of a stretch).  Anyway, this is going to be a VERY picture-heavy post, especially since I went a little overboard for Mr. Pocket.  Here we go!

This was a mug and some tea for Mr. Pocket to take to work.

Pajamas, something I'm making a tradition.

Custom Achievement Hunter t-shirt with his XBox gamertag on it.

Socks.  Yeah, I know.  He always wants socks for Christmas.

Cut the Rope boxers.  Om Nom is green.

Lego Lord of the Rings for the XBox.  Santa's helpers are elves, and there are lots of elves in Middle Earth.  I know, kind of a stretch.

Next, two gifts for Pocket Papa (my dad):

 

 

And for Mom:

 

 

These were for my brother and my sister-in-law:

And then finally, a gift card tag and a plain tag for my brother-in-law and my mother-in-law.

I had so much fun doing all of this, but I think next  year I will probably go back to tags for the boxes rather than decorating the paper itself.  It took five forevers.  Or, you know, two days.  Perhaps if I hadn't been so type A and wrapped the paper around the boxes first to get creases in the right places to guide where I had to decorate and then decorated the paper and then wrapped it back on the boxes, it wouldn't have taken so long.  But it also wouldn't have looked as good, and I wouldn't have been satisfied. 

I hope the post-holiday letdown isn't too bad, and that you have good plans for New Year's.  We're taking it easy this year and staying home.  Looking forward to a better year to come!

What I used:
Stencils:  by Michelle Ward
Stamps:  by Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous, by Inkadinkado (the adorable birds), by HeroArts, and I don't have the label anymore for the letter stamps but I got them at Michael's and I think they were Recollections (maybe)
Die Cuts:  Sizzix by Tim Holtz, and some random holly leaves that Mom had gotten at Michael's.  Cut from Core'dinations and some random gold and silver cardstock we've had for a few years, probably Recollections because I know I got it at Michael's
Inks:  Distress Inks by Tim Holtz for Ranger, some random gold and silver pigment ink that Mom had, and Tsukineko embossing ink
Embossing Powders:  I think they were all Stampendous
Sprays:  Perfect Pearls and Tattered Angels mists