Pretty Presents & Giveaway Announcement

Hi! I wasn't in my office to create a blog post yesterday as we had a snow day here in North Carolina! Unfortunately it wasn't the kind of snow day you could go out and play in...it was mostly sleet and freezing rain! Brrr! So Christopher and I stayed in and finished a 1000 piece puzzle he had been working on and then we made a gingerbread village. It was fun to spend time together, drinking hot chocolate and playing!

Here's our little gingerbread village.

Every year I hold out hope that our gingerbread project will resemble the picture on the box a little more than the previous years, but each year they look like this...walls caving in, icing smeared everywhere with sticky pieces of candy attached at random! ;) This village kit was purchased at Target if any of you are interested in making one with your kiddos.

I've also been working on wrapping presents and would like to share some with you. Don't you just love some of the pretty packages people wrap for Christmas? I never put much effort into our gift wrap because I'm concerned about the environmental impact of using so much paper, tags, bows, etc. But then I realized I could dress up the boxes and bags we use year after year!

These two presents are packaged in beautiful, reusable boxes from Nordstroms. I used the Wizard die cut machine with some Spellbinder's dies to create tags for these boxes. The stamped images are from Papertrey Ink. I colored my tags with Copic markers and used little office supply tags to print the to/from names. This entire piece slides right off the box so you don't even have to undo the bow! The box, ribbon and tag can all be used again next year because there's nothing to throw away! I can even remove the little to/from name tags because they are connected with tiny safety pins!

Several years ago, we purchased a set of nesting boxes from Target that are printed in holiday themes so you can use them again and again. I created this snowflake tag that can also be reused by replacing the to/from tag. If I ever get tired of the same old and tags, I can remove them since I attached them with re-positional tape. I could then use the tags to make a pretty cards!

I do use some wrapping paper for our son Christopher. It's fun when you are a kid to be able to rip open some presents! When I buy wrapping paper I look for those made from recycled paper with the highest amount of post consumer content. For this present of Christopher's, I made a fancy tag with bow so that part of the wrap can be reused.

Did you enjoy the free vintage download from my last post? I had a few folks send pictures of cards they made with it! Thank you! I had a chance to make this card for one of Christopher's teachers.

I created a lovely golden frame with a Spellbinders die, added some hand glittered touches and the rhinestone snowflake in the lower left hand corner. I think this image is just the sweetest! If you would like to create something with this it, click here.

For my last share I'd like to tell you about a giveaway on a fabulous blog I follow.

The blog is called Pretties and Posies and they are giving away all the lovely things photographed above! All you have to do is leave a comment on their post! The post also tells you about these gorgeous items and who they are made by.

Well, I've been going on long enough...lots of fun to share with you! I hope you all are enjoying these final days before Christmas. When I go blog hopping I get to see so many great projects, baked goods and decorations! It's been a lot of fun to see what you all are up to! Make it a great day! Kathy:)