Tuesday, November 25, 2008

What?? Already??

All of a sudden Thanksgiving is this week! Ack!! How did that happen?? We are headed to Rochester tomorrow to spend a few days with family. All of the brothers and their families will descend upon the in-laws for a rare few days together. Last Christmas was the last time we saw them so it will be good to be together again. The kids change so much in that time. Since we won't be seeing them at Christmas, we are doing our gift exchange this week. Double ack!! That means all my gifts need to bought and wrapped...and they are not. I am mostly done with the shopping but haven't gotten to any of the wrapping. I want to know how this seems to happen to me every year.
As some of you may remember, I did a lot of canning this summer and fall. Much of it was in preparation for gift giving. Well, now I need to find a way to package it all up. My BIL is challenging us all to go green this year by not using wrapping paper and disposable packing. Do you know what a difficult challenge that is?? To me the pretty packaging is what makes the gift extra special! Telling a paper crafter not to use paper and packaging is torture, lol! I don't think this is quite what he had in mind but I will say I did not purchase any of this stuff for the holidays. I dug through my stash to see what I could use or reuse. I purchased this box years ago at the Container Store and never used it. I think maybe as many as 4 years ago. It actually has some soiled spots on it from sitting around so long. So, really I was saving it from the trash. To cover up the dirty spots and better match my paper, I sponged on a combo of olive-ish chalk ink and frayed burlap Distress Ink. The paper is by MME, they have really come out with some fabulous papers! I added some strips of artichoke paper and vanilla grosgrain ribbon and accented it with snowflakes. The larger snowflake is a Spellbinders die and the smaller on is a Martha Stewart punch. I made the tag from scraps.
Inside I was able to perfectly package some of the goodies I have made: vanilla peach jam, apple pie jam, salsa and some home brewed vanilla (more on that next week!). The red filling was another item I have had for years so I was happy to finally use it up.
The box could easily be reused for another gift so I hope I didn't completely fail the green challenge!
Since we will be away for several days, I am going to have to delay the tutorial on the purse folio until next week. I had hoped to get to it yesterday but the boys were off of school and I spent my day cleaning, doing laundry, playing games with the boys, cooking, etc. On a bright note, I am mostly out from under the mess in my house. Now there is something to be grateful for!
I wish you all a very blessed Thanksgiving!

4 comments:

Sharon (notimetostamp) said...

This is darling -- just love it -- both the box, tag and gift!!! Have fun!!!

Anonymous said...

The packaging is perfect. Home brewed vanilla sounds interesting. Please share the recipe.

Anonymous said...

YUMMMM....your goodies sound WONDERFUL (and I'll keep looking for the home brewed vanilla)
Have a safe trip!

Renee said...

This is awesome! You did a great job with everything!