This is something I've been wanting to do for years, but it's just one of those many things that get pushed back to "someday when I have more time..." But some of you amazingly creative craftsy blogging friends have inspired me to finally get around to it. Well, that and the fact that we were (for most practical purposes) pretty much snowed-in, even here in the middle of the city.
If you know me or if you have been reading my blog for a while, you already know about my family's habit of saving every scrap of every little thing that doesn't either rot on its own or run screaming when we reach for it. And yes, some that do. My grandmother was known to iron used wrapping paper and ribbons to reuse later. Since the big Christmas day celebration was always at her house, she had the motherload of used paper right there at her fingertips. And holiday cards...she was a whiz with her pinking shears, cutting out hand-written well-wishes and signatures so every card could be reused as a tag on a gift in the future. Many of these were cut again after their first or second use and became even smaller tags.
Over the years many have actually survived...some are ripped, stained with large chunks of old cellophane tape and other, more mysterious yellow or brown things. 
Some have been cut to such ridiculous lengths that they are nothing but a small picture that doesn't make sense any more, maybe Santa's boot with half a squirrel next to it, cut, of course, with pinking shears. Or this guy...I think that's part of a paintbrush, he's probably writing some festive greeting or other. "Santa wuz here"...who knows what he's really doing? Poking a reindeer with a stick? I do hope that's red paint dripping from his pointy tool. 
Right up there with Aunt Peek's heavenly sweet pale green fluffy pistachio-marshmallow salad and my mom's own controversial yet mysteriously delicious tomato-shrimp aspic (I believe it's an acquired taste), these old, recognizable scraps of our family's past have always been an important part of our holiday celebrations. In the cacophony of ripping paper and children's squeals of joy, you hear, "oh I remember that card!" and "goodness gracious, you still have some of that paper?"
I've been hoarding odd little scraps of old cards that have been used on gifts to me for the last several years with the intent of scanning, cleaning up, and making new tags from them so they can continue to be part of our gift-giving traditions for generations to come. I should mention that although these are old cards, I can only assume that they are all still protected under their original copyrights and I wouldn't think of using them for commercial purposes of any kind. These are only to be shared with my own family in the same way that cutting and reusing the original cards have been for so many years.
When I finally finished my work projects last Monday morning, I cleared off my desk and got started. 
The scanning and cleaning part was the most tedious. When cleaning the images in PhotoShop, I kept noticing these little short green lines on a lot of the stuff. I couldn't figure out where it had come from and was using the clone-tool way more than I should have to erase chunks of green lines from cards that didn't seem to have anything green or liney on them. After doing this for way too long, I realized that I'd scanned this fuzzy little flocked thing early on. 
Oops. Oh yeah, note to self: thoroughly clean scanner bed before using again.
After printing them all on the big printer there was an awful lot of cutting-out to do. And assembling, but that was where the real fun began. 
Some were assembled with printed images on both sides, some with just cardstock on one side, and a few were glued to some old tags I found loose on cluttered shelves during my last hoarding trip to my favorite paper/office-supply salvage store only days before it closed for good (this is very sad, I am holding back tears as I type this...oh how I'll miss you, The Salvage Broker). I'll be OK. 
Inspired by Diane's tags that she's meticulously aged and embellished to perfection, I thought I might add a little luminescent paint to a few. This is a step I should have either played with until it looked better, or skipped altogether...I thought it might be kind of cool to just glop the paint on loosely...but well, not so much. It looks glopped on loosely (and sloppily) and they're my least favorite of the bunch. 
Then, finally (goody goody goody) I got out the glitter. We will be finding this stuff for months around here, shimmery little tidbits showing up in our clothing, the furniture, the animals, our faces...but oh boy I love me my glitter. 
Every tag got glittered. 
And glittered. 
And glittered. 
Then suddenly it was Christmas Eve. There were other gifts to make and wrap, baking and cooking to do, and favorite little traditions to keep. Chains went on the car, the alley was cleared, and the Logans actually ventured out on wheels for the first time in over a week for just enough shopping to get by.
On Christmas morning while digesting our traditional baked-frittata and homemade-cinnamon-roll breakfast I started finishing these tags with ribbons.
This is old, old ribbon...the very last of the contents of "The Ribbon Box" at Granny's house. Everyone in my family knows what The Ribbon Box was. Those 3 words were always said with much emphasis, slowly, clearly, and usually raising at least one eyebrow while enunciating each syllable. Most family members feared The Ribbon Box. Dusty old disintegrating stuff that used to be red and green, much of it ironed flat decades ago, small hard globs of it curled with scissors until threadbare. Shiny things full of lead, and countless other unspeakable toxic dangers were held within. To me though, it was a treasure trove of wonderfulness. And in our final cleaning and clearing out of that great old house, I snatched up all contents of The Ribbon Box that hadn't already turned to dust. 
We headed out into the snow...over the Sound and through the woods to my sister's house we went. The tags were finished on my lap, in the car, on the ferryboat heading toward the Peninsula. 
With the ferry's engine chugging away below us, I packaged them up and once on the other side they were given as gifts to family members who will, no doubt, use them and reuse them for years to come...maybe even trimming off people's names with pinking shears before doing so. 
These were really fun for me to make, and even more fun to give. And I barely made a dent in the collection of hoarded card scraps. Maybe next year I should get out that flocking stuff I bought a few years ago (but never opened) and see just how horrific a mess I can make with that...
