How to Put Together a Holiday Gift You Cannot DIY Fail

We've all seen those clever, handmade crafts and kitchen creations. It's like everything came together perfectly, and you become inspired to try it yourself. But when YOU recreate it? Forget it—it winds up saggy and lopsided, and doesn't even have a whisper of a resemblance to what it's supposed to look like.

This is not one of those how-tos.

DIY fails happen. And because we've all been there before, we tried and tested out this project ourselves. We're not crafters, and we're not artisans. But we do know our Avery products and free design templates on Avery Design & Print can make you look like one. Follow these simple instructions and you can get your holiday gifts wrapped up—and ready to ship—in one afternoon. So, let's get started, shall we?

Let's treat ourselves

When you think of winter, what does it smell like? Peppermint, right? We decided to package some pepperminty gifts for our friends.

Our first idea was candy jars. We got a bulk bag of peppermint candies to fill these quaint little glass jars. Easy enough. Then one of us got adventurous and said, "Oh, I'd like to make some peppermint bark, too." We scoffed. But believe it or not, it wasn't hard to make. You'll find several recipes online, and it's basically just white chocolate and crushed peppermint candies, yo. We found these cardboard gift boxes (they look like little brown cottages) to package the bark and lined them with parchment paper.

Making personalized gift tags and labels

To give our holiday gifts a coordinated look inside and out, we turned to the free Avery Design & Print Online software. There were so many designs to choose from, but after a little arm wrestling, this winter design won out. We used it to create personalized gift tags, jar labels and even shipping labels to address the shipping packages.

All packed up and ready to go

Whether it's cold and blustery outside or a warm and balmy 80 degrees, who wants to make a trip to the post office? Well, the Avery Shipping and Mailing Center is here to help. You'll find a variety of products and solutions to help get your packages and mail addressed, packed up and ready to go. And, because Avery Labels are integrated into popular shipping software platforms, you can get packages ready to ship in a snap, and even scheduled for pick up.

And there you have it. This holiday DIY project not only helped us with our gifting task, but our shipping task, too. And with Avery products and Avery Design & Print, it turned out to be a DIY triumph and not a travail. See how you can wrap up your holiday list with a little help from Avery.