Christmas Gift Tins

There's a lot to say for "presentation".   The way something looks is what makes us want to take a closer look. I have always enjoyed wrapping presents and the creative side of me has always loved to

take a little extra care in making packages beautiful.  It may take a little more time to do the extra details but it's always a joy to see the finished product and then see the recipient's face light up when you give her the gift.

This year I decided to have some fun making some gift containers for some of my Christmas gifts.

I saved some empty food cans,  made sure there were no jagged edges] and then soaked them for a bit in some soapy water to get the labels off.  Once dry, I was ready to start decorating the cans.

I used a "Doritos" can, green beans can and a large tomato can.  [I did not need to soak the "Doritos can.  I put the wrapping paper directly onto the can as is]

I then gather what craft items I need to decorate the cans. [wrapping paper, scrapbook papers, Christmas embellishments, ribbon and cards/tags. etc/]

I used double sided scotch tape and hot glue as my adhesives.  I adhered the papers on first with the double sided tape and then the embellishments with the hot glue. 

I used wrapping paper on the red container at the left and scrapbook papers to the other two.

You can use these containers for any kind of gift. [food items or other things : socks, jewelry, etc]

And, you can decorate them for any occasion.

The picture below shows how I turned the "joy" can upside down to be used as a candle holder.  You could make a can for this specific purpose or enclose instructions with the gift can that once the gift is removed, the container could be used for this. You might include the candle inside as the gift.

So, give this fun idea a try.  Save some cans and let your creative juices flow.

Happy Creating!  

Homemade Christmas Potpourri ~ Smelling this will help get you in the Christmas Spirit!

Homemade Christmas Potpourri 

~Gift ideas and for Your home!!!! 

Are any of you (or your little owlets) having trouble getting into the Spirit of Christmas? Well, let your nose help you out! Homemade Christmas Potpourri will help fill your house with comfy Cinnamon, Orange and many other traditional Christmas smells. Put the Potpourri in a pot on the stove with water and let it simmer while your at home and enjoy!

Last month I pinned (Pinterest) a bunch of Christmas Potpourri ideas because 1st I wanted to try it and 2nd I REALLY wanted to give some as gifts. So the past month I have tried some and found likes and dislikes.

                                        

Fresh fruits vs. Dehydrated ones ~~~ Hands down Dehydrated fruits looked better and smelled better. Personally I was surprised how lacking the fresh fruit was, but better for me since I wanted to incorporate dehydrated fruit in my gifts. You can dehydrate fruit in the oven or a dehydrator very easily. Note: I sprinkled a little cinnamon on my apple while dehydrating for looks!

Stove top vs. Crock pot ~~~ I was really hoping that the crock pot would work out better, BUT I would have to say I got better total house smell coverage with the Stove top. The Crock pot was nice since I didn't have to worry about the water evaporating as much. The Stove top on the other hand required me to refill with water about 2-3 time a day. There were time I simply turned the stove off and then back on later in the day. I kept it on simmer.

How Strong is it? ....Well, I have a 3200 sqft house and I was hoping it would engulf the entire house, but it didn't. It was funny how it would linger in various parts of the house, but all in all where it did smell it made me instantly happy with every whiff. I had MUCH much better success when I added cinnamon oil to the pot.

                                   

How long does it last?..... Well, my first one (crock pot) lasted a week, but then I got tired of it and threw it out. I think it would have lasted 2 weeks max, but not very potent. (remember my house is big). The stove top fresh fruit will last 2 weeks and dehydrated fruits will last 3+ weeks. My Potpourri never went "rotten" and I personally didn't keep it in the fridge at night. I simply covered my pot/crock pot.

Chunky is good!!! Not only is it visually appealing, but it holds up really good since it will be reheated constantly for weeks. When dehydrating the fruit..I did do 1/4 slices, but fresh fruit was quartered. Use whole leaf Basil and if you are using pine needles....why not cut off a small branch and put it in....stem and all.

So here are my favorite concoctions

Homemade Christmas Melody

6 Dehydrated Orange Slices

1 Dehydrated Lemon slice

4 Dehydrated Sliced Red Apple

5 Cinnamon Sticks with Cinnamon Oil ( see Tip bellow)

1/4 Cup Whole Cloves

1 1/2 Tbl Allspice or Nutmeg

4-5 Bay leaves ...preferably whole

click here for another great site for Christmas Potpourri recipes

TIP:  OK, since my house may be a little bigger than most.....I was not getting enough potency from my potpourri as I would have liked. Adding some Cinnamon Oil helped tremendously. Use extreme CAUTION when handling cinnamon oil....if you get it on your finger and touch your lips or eyes it burns like crazy. So, I didn't want my gift receiver to be injured from my gift. I used a small dropper to suck cinnamon oil out of the little bottle and put a few drops in the INSIDE of the cinnamon stick where they don't touch it.

Easy Gift Wrapping Idea

This is a Dollar Tree (dollar store) jar, Homemade Christmas Potpourri, red raffia and Tag. I am a printable "label" maker....not a hand writer or crafty cricuit person. Simple, easy, print, stick your done. I used a Avery Name Badge 5395 and Christmas Plaid print paper for this cute Jar. I love the display of the glass jar. 

Labels says:

Christmas is just a “Sniff” away!

Here is your 

Homemade Christmas Potpourri

Simply put entire content in a pot w/ water

 on the stove & simmer 

all day long. Keep an eye on it

 and add water as needed. 

Good for the whole month!

For all of you on a stricter budget: 

                                      

Homemade Christmas Potpourri, Clear Cello Bag, Christmas paper folded in half, Label and stapled. Cute and in anyone's budget!

                                               

Favorite Things Party

There is a new type of party that is such a "HOOT" called a Favorite Things Party. My sister's dinner group did one and it sounded like tons of fun. So I decided to throw one. Ususally half your invitation list DOESN'T come....but I am telling you that is NOT the case with this party. I had 30 girls attend my party.....hence we had to relocate the venue to my church building to accomidate everyone.  I had many guest BRING friends. No worries, it was the party of the year. It did not turn out as "pretty" decorations wise as I wanted because I had such a big guest list, but it was a huge success. Lots of laughter and who doesn't like their name being called as a winner 4 times in one night....guarenteed.

(keep reading to find out how)

This is going to be a long post so bare with me...know it will be worth your while.

Details are a must!!!

    

Here are some common questions and answers:

1. What is a Favorite Things Party you ask?

Well, It is a knock off of Oprah's Favoite Things Show......only I am not a millionaire and not giving all my guest things for free....like a car. LOL It is a party for everyone to share their favorite thing.

    

    

2. How does it work?

Well, each guest is going to figure out what their Favorite thing is .....say a Pumpkin Spice Candle......they buy 3 (some parties do 5) of that same Pumpkin Spice Candle and bring it to the party. Each guest will put their name in a raffle 3 time when they arrive. Each guest takes turns talking about their favorite thing and then they pick 3 random names out of the raffle bowl and those are the 3 guests that take the favorite thing (Pumpkin Spice Candle) home. So you come with 3 same items and eveyone leaves with 3 different items.

Are you Excited Yet!!!!!

     

   

3. How does the raffle go and who goes first?

Carrie made these SUPER cute name tags for everyone to put on as they arrived. I also made a note sheet with the title "These are a few of my favorite things....." for everyone to make notes.....even notes of items they may be interested in trading with other guests at the end. Stappled to the note were 4 tickets.....3 green and 1 red. They would put their name on the back of all 4 tickets, but put the green ones in the raffle for the Favorite Things and the red one for the Sawg Bag raffle.

I decided to start the party off and who ever is the last person you call to take your favorite thing home is the next person up. For example......My favorite thing was raffled to Carrie, Barabara and Heidi......Heidi was the last one called....hence she would be the next one up.  It worked out great. We did come to a situation where our last person up to do thier Favorite Thing presentation was raffled off their own item (there were only 3 names left in the raffle bowl and her name was one of them)...so we just asked if anyone wanted to trade one of their things for her last favorite item. It worked out great.

4. Is there a price limit?

Well, we set the price limit up to $10 each item so possibly $30 total spent. Honestly it really doesn't matter and personally I didn't care what my guests spent. If it is a $5 candle so be it!!!! I had no complaints and I had guests from all sorts of financial situations.

I have seen some blogs talking about doing 5 items at $6 each (which still comes out to $30), but I also saw complaints about people having a hard time finding good favorites for less than $6. So I opted for quality verses quantity. I liked 3 items verses 5 items.

     

    

5. Did everyone bring a food item to share?

Yes. Everyone brought one of their favorite foods to share. It doesn't have to be s dessert...we had all sorts of food : salsa & chips, Texas Road House Rolls & Cinnamon Butter, Punch, Cookies, Brownies, Bean Dip & Chips, Skinny Cow Icecream Bars and more!!!

    

6. Does everyone wrap their favorite thing item?

It depends on what you want. I had everyone put all 3 things in 1 party bag....so it was covered and still a surprise. I saw other blogs that didn't have it that way and it was all on display at the begining. I really really wanted to have cordinated gift wrapped boxes or bags delivered to everyone before the party for them to put their favorite thing in, but with 30 guest it was just not fezable.  I did have everyone's name on cards to tape to their giftbag before they put it on the Favorite Things table. Everyone used their original bag to take their new things home in.

7. How long was your party?

Well, let me tell you I got scared about time with so many guests. We started at 7PM and I say we had all the guest arrive ontime. We chatted and grabbed a plate full of food and got the favorite things raffle starting at 7:25. I told the girls munch as we go and get up for 2nds anytime. We ended our last raffle at about 8:30PM Perfect timing to still chat before everyone would need to leave.

    

 8. Did you do party favors or party bags?

Well, I did a 'swag' bag for all my guests. Originally I was going to fill them myself with fun things, BUT who can afford to do 30 of them. So I contacted some local vendors and asked for donations for free items, gift certificates, coupons or even 30 business cards with treats attached to them in exchange for some free advertisement for their business at my party. I really wanted one big item in each bag and between myself and the vendors we had AWESOME bags! So all my bags had various business cards, discounts, big items, candy and even chap sticks. Since every bag varied...I opted to do it by raffle....hence the 1 red ticket. I grouped the swag bags by items donated by each vendor and then did a small commercial if you will for that vendor and showed off all the items donated. This really got the guests excited and it also was good advertisement for the vendor. I did Swag bag raffles inbetween every 3-4 favorite things raffles.

   

Needless to say......Here are my awesome vendors. I have posted some picture of some of my 'Favorite Things' from their personal sites. Please check out their Etsy shops, Blogs and websites!



Snugglybuggs - Carrie Hannah - www.etsy.com/shop/craftynightowls

                         (quilt patterns, party paper straws, cupcake wrappers and die cuts)

 Adrienne Woods...she has 3 sites -

freetimefrolics.com  (sewing, crafting, patterns, food & other great ideas and tutorials)

Mytemplebook.com (books to keep track of temple work) I LOVE these books. Perfect LDS giftfor anyone that attends the Temple. Perfect for moms or mother-in-laws

for Christmas. Contact me if you are interested in some locally

and I can get FREE shipping

Cosette's Closet - www.etsy.com/shop/cosettescloset   www.cosettescloset.blogspot.com

 

Mosh Posh - www.moshposhdesigns.etsy.com (handcrafted jewelry)

I have several new designs I plan to add so check back often for new items. My current turn around time is 3 business days for items in stock.

Snugabugz - Cindy -  (baby quilts, infant carrier covers & more)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Snugabugz     www.facebook.com/#!/pages/snugabugz/287272031308595

One of my favorite things to do is to make baby items, especially quilts

The Quilted Lilies - Jera Watson - www.etsy.com/shop/thequiltedlilies 

                         (custom boutique style clothing for your little prince or princess)

Hello there and welcome to The Quilted Lilies! We specialize in boutique style clothing, bags and hair accessories for babies, toddlers, girls, boys, teens and women! I do accept custom orders so if you have a special day ahead please keep me in mind. I would love to have the opportunity to sew for you!

Never Nola - Angela Christensen - www.nevernola.com (accessories for the original you)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/NeverNola



Vault Denim - Heidi Hinkley - www.vaultdenim.com (denim jeans)

Genesis Print Works - Windy Uhach - genesisprintworks.com (for all your printing needs)

Of course we had something introducing our new blog. Carrie made these cute cute box Owls that have candy inside.  www.craftynightowls.blogspot.com

Our little Owl Business Card. 

If you have any additional questions....please ask in a comment and I will reply. You may have the same question as someone else!!!!