A Very Vintage Gift!

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven where time seems to be moving as swiftly as Santa's reindeer! I really must get a move on now December is upon us! Thanks to my daughter we have one present to put under the tree! Our dear friend Patsy who helped so much when my mum moved, happened to mention that the one thing she would love for Christmas would be some luxurious perfume, chosen just for her. Well, since Matilda started work at the Perfume Shop three Christmases ago, she has become quite the expert on choosing the perfume to fit the person. She decided that Patsy would like something spicy and exotic, but not too heavy and she chose her a lovely gift-set for my Mum to give her - here it is all ready for wrapping!

The gift box looks wonderfully festive, but not conventionally so with its rich browns and gold sequins - very sophisticated. I decided to complement this in my wrapping. As I love all things vintage, including unusual vintage tones I am really excited about the Our Creative Corner Challenge to create something that says 'Christmas' but with an unusual colour palette, drawing on creams, chocolates, wines and coppers. I should like to enter my wrapped gift for the Our Creative Corner, Very Vintage Christmas Challenge. I began with the tags for my gift. It was fun playing with Distress inks like Vintage Photo, tiny smidges of Evergreen Bough and Soot. On one side of my tags I simply swiped through the Distress Inks, heated, misted and swiped again. I love using my Frescos like Nougat and Cinnamon too - they sound so deliciously Christmassy! They came into play on the other side of the tags.

I sponged a ready-made tag after removing the string ( I put aside to paint with Old Gold Fresco) with Nougat and a blend of Cinnamon around the edges. I then stamped the image of the two cupids from LP017 in Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil Archival and some script from Paper Artsy Mini 26. I also stamped some of the brown paper I was planning to wrap the gift in with Mini 26 too. This I later die-cut with some Paper Artsy Waxy brown paper to turn into a tattered florals die-cut flower. As you can see from the little screw top jars of fairy dust, I added some Frantage in Shabby Rose to the edges of my larger tag. I only used a very little, as I wanted everything about this wrapping to be subtle.

I also stamped with script on the reverse of the tags, as although the back is not visible at the moment it will be when the gift is unwrapped:. below you can see the tiny splodges of Frantage at the corner of the larger tag.

The pack of tags also contained smaller sized tags and I painted one of these with Old Gold, a thin layer of Paper Artsy Crackle Glaze and then nice, thick strokes of Nougat.

I edged my Crackle Glaze tag with some Rose Quartz Treasure Gold and stamped it with the fir bough from Artistic Outpost's Snowy Woods plate. The addition of a gold skeleton leaf and a tattered pine cone rose in Nougat and Cinnamon with a little golden-brown narrow ribbon finished it off.

Here is the package all wrapped up! Please just click on the images if you would like to see in a little more detail. I stamped my brown paper with Versamark and then embossed with whiteWOW embossing powder, as I wanted the Snowy Woods snowflakes to really 'pop' against the neutral tones. I also stamped some script from a 'Crafty Individuals' stamp, sometimes allowing it to run over the snowflakes. I wanted a worn, uneven look so I used this without the block. There are some lovely Christmas ribbons on sale, but I wanted mine to co-ordinate with my vintage look. I recently bought a jacket. I liked the shape, but not the strange ribbons that were attached to the sleeves so I unpicked them! Luckily I kept these, thinking they were bound to come in useful. I stamped some of this very silky, luxurious ribbon with Snowy Woods snowflakes, this time with Wendy Vecchi Potting Soil Archival.

I placed a pearl at the centre of the script flower and edged the waxy paper petals with Rose Quartz.

Here is some tea-dyed lace I added and the Old Gold painted strings. I liked the way the lace retained a little of its former colour, but toned down by being steeped in tea.

Some ribbon and punched paper lace completed the larger tag.

Ultimately I was delighted with how glowing and warm the package looked, even though there was not a red tartan or an emerald green Christmas tree in sight!

 Thank you so much for stopping by to take a peek at my vintage wrapping! I do hope your Christmas preparations are going well and that your days will continue to be relatively stress-free and peaceful as the 25th draws closer.