Tag Archives: gifts

Pucker up

Posted on by
6

I’m sending family and friends some lip balm and chocolate hearts for Valentine’s Day. I love the tinted lip balm as it is very sheer and helps protect lips from drying out. Perfect combination. I also got some “regular” lip balm for the guys since they aren’t the type to use a tint.

I used tape donuts on the backs of the wrapped chocolate hearts and attached them to the card surrounding the lip balm. Then I printed out some strips of paper with Valentine-themed images and wrapped those around the bundle sealing the strips with taps.

Want to print your own? Click here and here for the pdf. These wraps will also fit around a candy bar.

How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?

Patti

Birthday Wishes

Posted on by
6

A couple of months ago I sent special Birthday Wishes to someone I know.  Her birthday wass close to the beginning of the month so I found 15 small gifts plus a birthday card for her to open beginning 16 days before her birthday.  Each gift was wrapped and labeled with the date to open.

Sorry that I don’t have a photo of all the wrapped gifts.

She is a knitter and needed some stitch markers so I decided to make a few for her.

Some were beads on a flexible wire that would fit over an US 15 needle.

And some were large jump rings with a bead glued over the seam.

All slid easily onto a large open ring to keep in her knitting bag.

Most of the items before wrapping:

Here’s the list of the items pictured above: small aluminum baking pans and pumpkin bread mix, Turbie Twist®, cake mix and Jello pudding, a set of spatulas, tissue packet, eyeglass holder, office supplies, planner sticky notes and flags, stitch markers, surfboard-shaped emery boards, Au Jus mix, sunflower potholders, coffee cup sticky notes, a small lidded organizer, and a sign for her office…

She loved each one.

First knits

Posted on by
3

Well, these are not exactly the first knits of 2018 but close enough.

I knit a pair of mitts for a dear friend a few years ago and her children love them and sometimes wear them.

So I knit a pair of mitts for each of them.

Crossed Cables – Shirl’s Mittlets knit in Yarn Bee Snowflake wool blend

Honeycomb – adapted from Unisex Gloves knit in Araucania Natural Wool

Owl – Who’s Owl Mitts knit in Cleckheaton

Bumpy – my pattern knit in Lion Brand Wool-Ease

Ziggy -my pattern knit in Lion Brand Wool-Ease

I hope they don’t fight over them…

Gift Wrapping 101

Posted on by
1

We’re probably all finished or at least down to the wire with gift buying and are ready to wrap (pun intended) it all up!

When I working in retail many, many years ago (20), gift bags were not the way to go.  One of my tasks working in the display department was to wrap empty boxes for displays and do the gift-wrap wall so customers would gladly pay for a “professionally” wrapped gift.  Trust me.  I was good at gift-wrapping.  And I learned a few things along the way.

Believe it of not, 99.7%* of gift recipients prefer to unwrap a gift instead of pull it out of a tissue-paper-filled bag.

What do you prefer to do? Unwrap or dig-for-your gift?

I thought so. You prefer to unwrap a gift.  Who wants to dig for their gift unless you are an archeologist?

So, here are my (ergonomically correct) thoughts on gift wrapping.

  1. Decide now if you want to wrap all of “John’s or Jane’s” gifts in the same paper/ribbon color or if you want to use whatever paper you have on hand.  If you decide on one particular paper pattern/color per recipient, you will need at least one roll of said pattern/color of paper devoted to each recipient.  Or specific color of ribbon.  I love the two-sided wrapping paper!
  2. Do NOT wrap gifts at the dining room/ kitchen table.  The typical table height of 29-30 inches is not high enough and you will hurt your back.  Do wrap at a 35-38 inch tall counter.  Your back will thank you.
  3. Gather ALL your wrapping supplies together: paper, tape, scissors, ribbons/bows, tags, and/or any other embellishments you wish/have on hand.
  4. Write out the tags BEFORE you wrap any thing.
  5. Wrap the BIG gifts first so you can use any scraps of left over paper for the smaller gifts.
  6. Tag each gift as soon as you finish wrapping it.  Seriously, you will forget even if you have a specific color/pattern of paper for each recipient.
  7.  Attach ribbons/baker’s twine/premade bows/embellishments to the package.
  8. Stack gifts under the tree OR hide gifts.

Good luck with your gift wrapping.

I actually do all of these things before I wrap any gifts.  I have learned the hard way to not trust my memory. And my back thanks me every year.

BTW, Mr. Aitch either gifts with gift bags or has the gift sent already wrapped.  Some people just don’t have the confidence with paper wrapping and that’s ok.

*made up factoid