Paper Craft Christmas Gift Toppers

I'm doing fancy gift toppers this year!

Basically, I've spent weeks now throwing together extra rosettes and little roses in neutrals and Christmas colors.  Any time I had a few minutes to sit and make stuff, I've been making things for gift toppers.  I've cut white extras, green extras, brown, red, etc... Little things to put here and there.

I've gotten the Cricut involved.  I've hunted my stash for anything bright and beautiful.  I pushed past all of the voices in my head that told me I was crazy for planning something like this.

I stamped and punched a bazillion tags.  I got Christmas cardstock for boxes.  I got cute ribbons, but mostly I'm using 50 cent a spool ribbon from JoAnn.

With all the prep, I feel like a Christmas genius!  I know it's crunch time now, but if every now and then you need a break and want to just make something pretty, you can still get some of these beauties together.

The beauty of this, too, is that by sticking to a palette of neutrals and Christmas colors for the decorations, you'll be able to use the decorations you make all year long.  Neutrals and red or neutrals and green... Gorgeous!  And totally not only for Christmas!

If you don't already know how to do rosettes, there are a million tutorials out there you can find.  For roses, THIS was my original inspiration: http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2010/11/diy-faux-curled-rosewood-wreath-made.html.  Stunning!

I personally make my roses with paper, not cardstock, and start with 3" squares which I assemble into roses two layers at a time.  (Cut spirals into two squares at once, then roll up.)  This gets me 8 roses out of one sheet of 12x12 paper.

Here's my process for assembly:
1. Measure gift. (Every single one of these is holding knitted treasures, so I'm measuring the folded item.)
2. Make appropriate box.  (The Martha Stewart scoring board has the measurements listed out so that you don't have to think about it.)
3. Arrange various pieces on top of the box until you have a pleasing arrangement.
4. Assemble the gift topper with hot glue, separate from the box.  I use extra scraps of cardstock on the bottom, if necessary, to hold things together.  But mostly I'm just gluing on top of rosettes, which are already pretty sturdy.
5. Wrap gift in tissue paper, situate inside of box.
6. Tie ribbon in a simple bow around the box, leaving long loops.  Trim tails even with loops.
7. Attach gift topper to box with Zots or glue dots or tape or whatever you want to use... I try to do it so that the box and topper can be reused, if desired.
8. Attach the name in such a way that it can be cut off or removed without destroying the entire topper.

Each gift is taking less time to put together and decorate than hunting down perfect boxes and wrapping.  These things look amazing, and I'm saying that in all humility because, seriously, with stuff this cute, how could it not?


And with all of the reactions I've gotten so far, I'm thinking that next year as Christmas presents, I'm going to be putting together gift kits for people so that they can decorate their own gifts like this if they want to.  ^_^  I LOVE everything to do with presents!!!

(One of my primary love languages is giving and receiving gifts... Can you tell?  ^_~)