Welcome to the 9th Advent calendar window! The Advent season is the time of year when even I, who normally sews and decorates things rather simply, like to add a bit of glitz to my creations. The motto of this year’s calendar, “Time to Shine”, is therefore very appropriate for me! I am always short on time and in the run-up to Christmas this problem is particularly acute because I want to make, bake, sew, decorate and have a good time during the festive season. So it has to be quick. Are you ready for a very quick decoration idea using just a few materials, that you can use in different ways and of course that sparkles? Great, let’s get started with sewing gift tags:
We are sewing, or rather crafting, small gift tags or decorations to hang on the Christmas tree. By the way, this is also a lovely craft project to do with children and a great exercise for them to take their first steps, or rather seams, on the sewing machine.
All that glitters! Sewing gift tags and Christmas tree decorations
I am not going to provide you with specific instructions, but rather I’m hoping to give you inspiration to do your own thing with the materials you have. I found a lot of SnapPap when I looked through my stock of materials. I really like the gray-brown version, which reminds me a bit of kraft paper. The natural look provides a great base for simple decoration with a touch of glitter.
Sewing gift tags/decorations – materials
In addition to a sewing machine, we need SnapPap, metallic thread (I was given mine as a free sample at a trade fair) and leftover pieces of vinyl film.
My materials are just one possibility. You can easily replace SnapPap with reinforced fabric or kraft paper. The vinyl film can be easily replaced by a glitter pen or shiny sticker. Buttons are also great – I didn’t have any sparkly ones, so they wouldn’t have fit in with the theme. 😉
You can just use whatever you already have at home.
I cut out a template for my trees out of paper. As I want to sew two pieces together for each tag/decoration, they should be exactly the same size. If you want to go on to make individual pieces, you can of course also cut out completely freestyle however you like. SnapPap is also perfect for ironing – I was worried my trees were curling, but that wasn’t an issue once they had been ironed.
Embellishing the gift tags/decorations
If you want to make it a little more exciting at this point, you can add more features to your template design: make points in the Christmas tree, or sew on two parallel lines to give it more detail. A few special stitches can also make a difference to your decoration.
As I didn’t want to start up my plotter, I cut small leftover pieces of film into strips or punched them out with a hole punch to make baubles. The decorations are ironed onto their trees using baking paper. It’s super fast because I iron them all on at the same time instead of one by one.
I wanted my trees to have a simple graphic look so I just sewed woven labels onto a few of them. As I am a co-founder of the label company #mehrEtikette, I am well-situated when it comes to beautiful woven labels. Our 5th edition, which came out just before Christmas last year, goes with the theme particularly well: it is sparkly!
Using sparkling thread and the Edgestitch foot # 10, I sewed two of them together neatly.
For the sewing beginners among us: start with a straight line, select a stitch length of 3 mm and sew at a moderate speed towards the corner. Stop there as soon as the distance from the edge is the same size as the distance from the needle to the edge. Leave the needle in the fabric, lift the presser foot, turn the little tree, lower the needle and simply continue sewing.
Put a small eyelet in any tags and decorations that won’t just be leaning casually on a branch as table decorations. Your gift tag or Christmas tree decoration is now finished!
Merry Christmas and I hope you have lots of fun making them!
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