Getting Prepared for Christmas

With Christmas only 6 weeks away I have been writing listings, purchasing gifts, wrapping presents and starting on those gifts I am making such as these for the Little Guy's daycare staff:

You may remember me blogging about these little canvas bags back in August here. Purchased for just a few dollars for a pack of 4 they are the perfect packaging for the mini recipe book and Christmas decoration the Little Guy will give his carers. I've had these little booklets in my craft stash for a while and decided to make up a little recipe book of 5 yummy treats my Little Guy loves to eat. The clear Christmas tree decoration was a recent purchase from Spotlight for around $2 - it comes apart in 2 pieces so you can fill it with chocolate etc, tie a ribbon to the top and then hang on your tree. Using some internet freebie digital Christmas scrapbook paper and alphabet I whipped up a quick name tag and tied it on with some sparkly ribbon I found in Coles (Christmas section).

Our Christmas tree and decorations through out the house will go up over the next couple of weeks once we have completed our room swapping (more about that soon).

I'm also continuing to organise the Little Guy's 2nd birthday party which is just a few weeks after Christmas and have made some recent purchases on Etsy which I will share later.

Handmade Gifts and Planning Ahead

Wow - over a month since I last posted. My days seem to be filled up very quickly with work, looking after a 20 month old, cleaning, washing, cleaning, washing etc.

The little spare time I've had I've been using to complete some projects (while catching up on Mc Dreamy and Mc Steamy on dvd) including designing two lots of invites - one handmade and the other with photoshop. Plus:

The Wedding Keepsake box is a gift for my gorgeous friend Ms E who is shortly going to become Mrs A! She is getting it a little early so she can start to store all those keepsake little bits and pieces she has already collected.

The Shadow Box frame is another 'Day You Were Born' gift for our neice Miss C whose dedication/naming day is in a few weeks. I went with a rustic horse theme for her horse mad parents! The certificates can be purchased from here .

The party printables is me planning for the little guy's birthday. I know it's not until January but with Christmas and a busy few months ahead I need to start getting organised now as the 2 weeks following Christmas I want to be all ready and not running around trying to organise a party! I had Nicole from The Two Saavy Sisters custom design me a gridiron (American football) theme party pack (modeled on her Vintage Baseball Party Pack) in the colours of white/light blue/brown. I am so pleased with the way all the pieces turned out and can't wait to put it all together.

A few busy weeks ahead with a Kitchen Tea, Hen's Night, Miss C's dedication/naming day, Ms E's wedding and then it's November and Christmas is just around the corner!

Gift Wrapping/Presentation - think outside the square!

The big guy, the little guy and myself are away in New South Wales' central west at the moment visiting family in Cowra. Lucky for me the motel we stay at (everytime we come if we can!) has wifi. Thank goodness I remembered to bring my laptop this time (unlike 6 or so weeks ago when in a packing frenzy I forgot to bring any sort of entertainment in the form of computer, book, magazine etc to curb my boredom in the evening hours when the little guy is asleep - although last trip he decided he would not succumb to sleeping during the nighttime hours!).

For the first time in may visits to this town we have actually done some touristy things like visit the Japanese Gardens and POW site:

The gardens will be so lovely in spring time when all the flowers start to bloom. We will have to time a visit one year for the Cherry Blossom festival.

Now back to the post topic - packaging - think outside the square. In preparation for this visit to see family and our new neice Miss B I was organising the rather overboard amount of presents I had purchased and needed to buy some wrapping paper or a gift bag to keep it all together. While zipping into Coles for a quick trip for nappies (so annoying Coles in the only store to stock our preferred brand of nappies for the little guy) I noticed some pink storage containers which would be perfect for toys or lots of other items you need to store that come along with having a baby.

So I made a 'Congratulations' sign for the top of the box, tucked all the gifts inside along with the card and a photo album I made:

My sister thought it was a great idea - mission accomplished!

I also recently purchased these from one of our local discount stores:

They are 15cm x 15cm canvas type bags and were a bargain @ 3 for $2.00. I am thinking they will be perfect for packaging gifts for the little guy's daycare staff this Christmas. I need to think of a way to decorate the outside (possibly some sort of silvery snowflake design with the purple and blue). I'm also thinking they would make perfect kids size gift bags for guests at the little guy's next birthday party. Next time I'm out shopping I will buy some more of these little gems to put away for future use.

Have a lovely weekend!