things in matchboxes

Such a beautiful concept, putting little things in decorated matchboxes. Something so simple, yet so fun and sure to put a smile on someones face. The last two images are from The matchbox project, which is a project undertaken by a Sydney girl, who, each week, takes a decorated matchbox with a tiny present hidden inside, and leaves it somewhere in her travels. It's a random act of semi-artistic kindness aimed at disrupting someone's day in a tiny but positive way. I love it.

The top image is from Fine little day, who received this lovely little 'wish star' from Maartje. I also highly reccommend reading Fine Little Day, her blog is delightful.

The second image is from Abigail Brown who creates the most gorgeous little textile animals. Including these ever so sweet matchbox birds.

oh christmas tree (part 2)

If you cast your mind back to November, to this post. About my Christmas tree idea. Well.. here's the story and how it turned out.

You see, it all started when I had some spare bird cage decorations that I had made, and I wanted a way to display them. I remembered seeing in a shop, they used sticks/twigs to display jewelery, and I thought, hey! that could look good to hang my decorations on. But... Where would one buy a stick tree??
Then... an Ikea cataloge arrived one day, and on the front cover they had a bunch of white sticks hanging from the ceiling with Christmas baubles hanging on it. I ran about the house pointing at it to everyone, trying to convince them it was a cool idea.
Suddenly, these stick trees start popping up all over the place, it was like I had predicted a trend.
Perhaps its a common subconscious trend due to the financial crisis, we are going for an economical tree. Or maybe its environmental, rather than chopping down a poor tree, just pick up sticks off the ground. Whatever it is, its popular.

Well enough explanation, here is my tree:
I bought one twig from a gift store, the rest I made myself by painting sticks white.

Handmade wrapping/packaging ideas from Japan

These are amazing examples of handmade packaging great for both product packaging and gift wrapping. I think doilies are becoming quite popular at the moment.
These are very inexpensive but fun ideas!!
I found them on a Japanese site called aurinko

Christmas is coming- Part one

{{PART ONE}}

Well its about 6 weeks till Christmas now, and all the shops are full of decorations, and when I went to the post office today they were playing Christmas music.
So I'm starting a little christmas is coming segment, where I share my latest chrissy finds.

I can't stop finding exciting wrapping ideas! Gone are the days of grabbing some wrapping at the last min. Wrapping is an art form! So embrace it, make the gifts you give extra exciting and tantalizing with beautiful wrapping.

Oh and I'm deliberately avoiding 'traditional' red and green Santa type stuff.

Print out this gorgeous wrapping paper, available here

Every Jot and Tittle has some fun original gift tagsPaperchase also have some cute tags
For COUTURE GIFT WRAP try ERIN RUTH

Or perhaps fancy hounds tooth envelopes byKnottyByNature
And for a truly fancy gift tag, you must see my mums shop Mulberry Muse

Some lovely packaging ideas at http://www.marthastewart.com
including using old papers, threads and fabric.

Peg your gift tags on, from SusyJack

And this is seriously cool- You write on the card then construct it into a figure- u have to see!!

Next on Christmas is coming- decorations!!