I love wrapping gifts. Naturally you want to choose a gift that you think will delight the recipient, so why shouldn’t the presentation have the same effect?

Each year I choose a theme for my Christmas wrapping. Actually, I hesitate to use the word “theme” here, because I always think of theme rooms (Jungle safari! Circus! Beachy/nautical/seashells aplenty!). What I mean to say is that I am my own art director. Yes, hello – I am persnickety.

Anyway. This year’s “theme” was metallic and pink. I’m using silver, copper, bronze, and gold wrapping papers (from Target and IKEA), and various silver, bronze, and pink ribbons.

The gift tags I made are simple, but with enough possible combinations to make them interesting. First, the necessary tools…

I have a very heavy-duty circle punch (the big black thing), but any craft punch would work. I also used a couple of Sharpies, a pencil, scissors, a hole punch, decorative scissors (for children, judging by the brightly colored plastic), and scraps of pretty paper.

I started by punching out circles in my shimmery stardream papers. I then used the leftover scraps to trace onto my other papers, and cut out a slightly smaller circle with my decorative scissors.

After making many circles, you can put the gift tags together in different color combinations, punch a hole, and you’re done.

The gift tags are the most labor-intensive part of the wrapping process, but they’re actually pretty easy. Once they were finished, I just mixed and matched everything. Choose a paper, choose a ribbon (extra points for off-center placement and criss-crossing!), add the gift tag, and that’s it.

Don’t they look nice when they’re grouped together?