Day 5: Homemade daily challenge

Today is Twelfth Night and concludes the Twelve Days of Christmas which means today is the day the decorations have to come down. I am going to be a bit sad taking the tree down this year as it makes the room feel so cosy, but if you don't remove all signs of Christmas today you are supposed to have to keep them up all year and I'm not sure I could cope with that!

To help reduce waste (and save a few pennies on next years Christmas) here's a quick easy project for homemade gift tags using up all those Christmas cards.

Choose a nice bit of the design and cut any shapes you like, you can be quite creative here and some designs that might have been considered a little bit naff or out of fashion can look really cool if cropped in a different way. Make sure your tags are around 5cm square or you won't have space to write on the reverse. Use a whole punch or a pencil and a piece of blutac (Blue Peter style) to make the string whole. Put them somewhere safe til next year, when I did this last year and stashed them away in the loft with my Christmas decorations, I had a lovely surprise when I opened the bauble box last month, don't mind saying felt a bit smug :)

You don't need any special equipment, although I did invest in a round paper punch, all you really need is a stack of Christmas cards and some scissors and string or ribbon.

No need to waste money on gift tags again!