Gift Baskets

UPDATE: Since Hubs thought I sounded bitter and hating the world when I wrote the post I decided to get rid of the negative stuff 

I really love making gifts baskets.

I love giving gifts to friends and family. The look on there face when they receive a gift is priceless to me and makes my heart happy.

Does anyone out there like gift baskets? What is your favorite, making them or receiving them?

I like receiving them just as much. A basket full of little bits and bobbles...what fun!

this one is filled with soap, scrub, bath soak, and body spray that I made. 

I made these for our neighbors at Christmas time. A tray with hot chocolate and cookies. Perfect for a cold winter night.

Have a wonderful evening,

Heather

Handmade Christmas Gifts 2012

In the spirit of Christmas and St. Nicholas I decided to get started on my favorite thing. Making Presents!!! I love making gifts and giving them away.

These gift baskets are stuffed with my home made bath soak, body spray, salt scrub and soap. My deluxe basket! I finished it off with a basket and filler from the Dollar Tree and wrapped in in a clear basket bag and tied it up with simple blue ribbon.

This is another basket I filled with some home made bath soak and salt scrub. I finished it off the same way as the deluxe basket. I also do the little baskets with a scrub/body spray combo and a large scrub/small scrub combo. These are always well received around the holidays. After all the holiday shopping and traveling who isn't in the mood for some relaxing down time? These baskets provide just that!

These cute snowmen are chocolate candy bars we hand out to the kids in the neighborhood, the mail carrier or a delivery person dropping off Christmas packages. They are easy to make and affordable. Just take an 8 1/2x11 sheet of white paper and cut in half. Take a half of the paper and wrap it around the chocolate bar. Tape the back, add a cute little face to the front, tie on some ribbon and you have snowman candy bars! 

This I haven't started yet, but can you guess what I am going to make? You guessed it! Chocolate bars and truffles. These are for a cookie exchange party we are going to in mid December. Can't wait to taste test!

 Here are the soaps that I made this year. Rose scented for the ladies and Drakkar cologne for the men. They turned out quite fragrant. All I have to do is wrap them up and stuff them in a basket with other goodies.

These are the cards and matching box I made for my Mom's birthday. I chose a snowflake theme since she will most likely use them all before Winter ends and by Spring I will have a new boxed set for her!

Last I have these great gift bags for our neighbors. I bought a charger from the Dollar Tree and added a box of cookies and some hot chocolate. I finished it with a basket bag and festive bow. I think project cost me around $6. It's cute, festive and you really can't go wrong with cookies and hot chocolate on a cold winter night.

Do you make gifts for the holidays? What are they? Leave me a link to your blog in the comments and I will add you in an up coming blog post about more homemade gifts!

Decorating For Christmas

I have started and finished decorating for Christmas. I keep it very simple, basic. We live in a small house by today's standards so our tree is only 3 feet tall.
It makes for easy decorating. I stick to two colors, red and white and add a few pops of green, silver (because you have to have some sparkle) and maybe gold.
Side note: See that white wall. I painted that myself a few weeks ago. If you think that is no big deal, you are wrong. I have lived with a wood paneled wall behind our fireplace for 12 years and finally won an ongoing disagreement we have had about painting it. Not to mention we are remodeling the house in 6 months and taking this wall completely out. But that doesn't have anything to do with my WINNING! Does it?

You must excuse the photos. I love taking pictures and when I got sand in my camera at the beach this summer I ran out and bought a small point & shoot Canon camera that was in my budget. Well, I should have waited until I had more money because I cannot take a decent picture with this thing!

Anyway, my Christmas decor is simple. I love it and the kids think it looks lovely. This year I did add some subway art from Pintrest. It cost me all of $7 and I will post that tomorrow.

I also changed up the Advent calendar this year and made my own with small gifts and activities for the family to do.

It started out, I was going to decorate 24 mason jars and fill them with goodies. I got out 12, realized that It was taking up WAY too much space, and was going to be a lot more work than I anticipated so I bought a pack of brown paper bags at the Dollar Tree and there they sit in a bucket I wrapped in scrap Christmas paper left over from last year.

I will leave you all with one more little picture of our tree. A very bad picture but it will give you an idea of how I have decorated it and kept it simple.

Tomorrow I will spill the beans about my obsession with making paper bunting, subway art and some recent decorating I have done - not Christmas related.

Night All!

Heather

How do you decorate for Christmas??
Simple?
Elaborate?
Not at all???

Let me know.

No Internet

I am putting myself to a test.
I am giving myself a break from the internet for 1 week. I will check email once a day, and post any new products on Etsy, but other than that I am staying away.

I have been clouded by all the things I am obsessing. I need to get back on track and find myself. Come up with my own ideas and be creative in my own way...not like everyone else.

I might actually get some things done around here for a change.

This thing still needs to be painted. Maybe that will be #1 on my list, we shall see.

Making Cards and Other Stuff

I have found a new addiction Pinterest. Fun and awesome all at the same time. I would be on there all the time if I didn't have family or an artsy crafty hobby to tend to.

Anyway I have been busy in the garden since my green house blew over and I had to start my seedlings all over. It was worth the wait. I have so many chilies and tomatoes I will have to sell them so they don't get thrown into the compost.

Extra money never hurt a hobby!

I started dabbling in card making. I was inspired by Helen (Scott's aunt) who makes wedding invitations. They are so beautiful.
I am no way going to do wedding invites but basic card making I can do...I love glue and glitter and gluing little things together. And drawing. When I have more me time I might actually get back into drawing, I am pretty good.
I make basic blank cards for Thank You notes, love letters, break up threats...you can actually write whatever you desire because they are blank and well, I just decorate them for you. I sell them in sets of 7 cards with envelopes and each set has a theme. Allison (above) is photographing the theme pack "Thank God I'm a Country Girl.
You can get the cowgirl boot custom glittered in your favorite color!!!

Check out my Etsy shop to browse. I have many more things coming soon. Baby items, because I sew too. So maybe patch work baby quilts, pillowcase dresses...

My mind in over run with craft ideas (thank Microsoft for the post it notes on the desktop), just wish I had more time in the day, but then again, don't we all.