Glitzy Packaging with Michelle Philippi

I'm soooo excited to share today's craftyness with you. If you know anything about me, you know that I love me some pretty packaging. And if you didn't know that about me - welcome to my fun lil' secret *giggles* My friends over at May Arts sent me some beautiful ribbons to work with that I was able to match with this great apple green gingham bag and lots of fun elements from Glitz's Love Games collection.
I just love that I was able to coordinate all these funky colors together!

Ohhh what a perfect look! - sometimes these colors are hard to match, and sometimes the perfect complement is right in front of you; love it when that happens!

My initial idea was to stitch 4 strips of the ribbon across the bottom half of the patterned paper.

So I started stitching away.

And when I had 2 done I decided that 4 would be too many.
So I tried topping the 2 ruffle layers with one to see how that looked.

And I liked this far better than my original vision.

And then I made a pretty bow to top it off with. I hand-make big pretty bows for all my Christmas packages...just like they do at the fancy department stores. It's really easy. If you don't know what the secret is, I'll spill it for ya': wire-edged ribbon ;)

There's something so magical about a perfect flouncy bow. It's so girly and frilly and fun, isn't it?

And then I layered some vintage diecuts from Glitz behind my ribbon before adhering it with hot glue.

I threw a wooden clothespin in there for a piece that was less-bright - and I applied some vintage ink to it to tone even that down.

And then I added some faux stitching around the top for an even more homespun feel.

And here we have it - a beautiful gift bag ready for gift-giving.
This little bag will put all those store-bought bags on the present table to shame.

I was still in crafty mode when I finished that bag so I jumped right on to another bag. More pretty wire-edged ribbon from May Arts, and more patterned paper and diecuts from Glitz.

~ Michelle