Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts

Gift Card Plaque

Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, December 19, 2012. Filed under: ,
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I don't mind giving gift cards as gifts if that's what someone asks for or if it's for an experience rather than just stuff.  I love when my godparents give Husband and I gift cards as gifts for stuff like dinner and a movie.  We don't go out often for date nights, so when we're given a date night as a gift it's a great gift for us.  This year, Stepdad wanted music but because he's so picky about his music he wanted an iTunes gift card rather than just a full CD.  Fine by me!  (If I have to get someone a gift card because I can't think of anything else to get them, that's when I have a problem with giving a gift card.  I have reasons for this.)  I got Stepdad his iTunes gift card, but didn't want to stick it in an envelope or one of those boring gift card tins that you see everywhere.  I was out hunting for fabric with one of my friends a couple of weeks ago, and I stumbled across the perfect gift card giving idea for only $0.97 at Wal-Mart, of all places.  I know many people always think to go to Wal-Mart for their crafting needs, but I always forget that it is an option!!!



Anyway, for $0.97 at my local Wal-Mart, I picked up this wood plaque from Plaid, then painted the back gray using some Apple Barrel paint in Granite Gray.


I also wrapped the paint around the front on the edges, then let the whole thing dry.



While the paint was drying, I printed out some sheet music to adhere to the front, then worked on my Homemade Gift Tags that I posted last week.  The plaque soaked up the paint pretty quickly, so it was dry within an hour.  I laid the piece of paper with the sheet music image that I was using over the front of the plaque, then rubbed the edges so I got a nice crisp line on the edges so I could cut the right size and shape pretty easily, like so:


After cutting the shape out of the sheet music, I used Mod Podge and glued it to the front of my plaque.


I used hard coat because that was what I had on hand (I've got a project that I'm going to start next year with some storage cubes and Mod Podge) but I'm sure any kind of Mod Podge would work perfectly.  This was the first time in awhile that I've worked with this stuff, and I forgot that especially when working with wood you really do need to use quite a bit to make sure everything adheres well.  Don't skimp on the Mod Podge!!  Once the initial layer dried, I applied two more coats over the top of the sheet music.

Next, I grabbed my removable/repositionable Zots (I really don't like those things, I can never get them to lay flat) and my gift card.


I stuck one glue dot on each corner of my gift card, positioned it roughly in the middle of my plaque, and ended up with a unique way to give someone a gift card as a gift!


I kind of put the sheet music on the wrong way - oops.  But I'm still proud of the way it turned out, and i'm glad that when Stepdad goes to open it on Christmas Eve he's not going to pick it up and know, "Oh, it's a gift card!" before he even opens it.




O Christmas Tree

Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, December 16, 2012. Filed under: ,
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Last year, Husband and I got a real Christmas tree to celebrate our first year in our house.  This year, because things have been so crazy with my medical stuff and finances and a couple of other things we didn't have time to go cut down a tree, so we went back to the artificial tree that I had from my very first apartment.  I thought I would hate having a fake tree, but the no maintenance thing is super nice, and I don't think it looks super fake.


Husband put the lights on this year, so I'm not sure what's going on with that big dark spot on the tree.  It's kind of sad looking, isn't it?


We got a new star this year.  We used to have one with sparkles all over it (clearly picked out by me) but I got tired of vacuuming up the sparkle remnants from the star every year so we picked this one up at Menard's.  I'm normally a much bigger fan of silver than gold, but I really liked this star.


Every year for St. Nick, Husband and I exchange ornaments.  I got him a Hallmark ornament shaped like a movie box of popcorn that says, "I like you more than movie popcorn with butter" and he got me this camera.  I love it.  I'm thinking about putting 2012 in the lens.  


This is one of my favorite gifts that I wrapped this year.  I had all of these left over clothespins from a mirror project I did, and I thought they'd go well with the wrapping paper I had for this year.  I just really like how it turned out.


I also really like how this gift turned out.  I think the little bow is really cute and I like how the ribbon around the box turned out.  

So, that's the extent of my Christmas decorating for the year.  My house it definitely not the cheeriest on the block this year, but I commit to make that different next year.






Homemade Gift Tags

Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, December 12, 2012. Filed under: ,
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Now that I have my handy dandy Silhouette Cameo, I really didn't want to spend money on gift tags.  I have more than enough cardstock and ribbon lying around my house to make hundreds of tags, and I think the ones that hang are cute.  The wrapping paper that I bought this year has a cream and dark red color scheme, and I've got tons of dark red cardstock left over from making my wedding invitations.  I also had some yarn left over from our front door "wreath" that was kind of a country rustic feel, so country rustic was the look for the year.  I cut some tag shapes out of cream cardstock with the Cameo, then did some snowmen outlines and some snowflake outlines out of the dark red cardstock.


I just attached the shapes to the tags using rubber cement.  I liked having the brush in the lid of the rubber cement to get in to all of the nooks and crannies of the snowflake shapes.


Once that was done and dry, I cut 6 inches of yarn, folded it in half, and used a Lark's Head knot to attach the yarn to the tag, then tied the end of the yarn in to a normal knot.  Et voila!!


All made at no cost to me, since I had all of the materials left over from other projects.  The snowflake design was the free shape of the week from the Silhouette Online Store.  The snowman design did cost $0.99, but I still have credit left from the $10 promotional credit from when I first bought my Cameo, so it all worked out well!



The Case of the Missing Christmas Spirit

Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, December 9, 2012. Filed under: ,
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I'm normally a huge fan of Christmas.  I'm the girl who starts planning for Christmas in July.  By October, I have my Black Friday plan of attack laid out.  The weekend after Thanksgiving, I've got the house decorated and the tree up, and decorated gifts start appearing under the tree not long after. 

This year, I'm not really feeling Christmas.  I did Black Friday shopping with Mom, but I didn't really have the fun that I normally do.  The weekend after Thanksgiving, Husband and I had intentions of decorating the tree.  (I should say, I had intentions of decorating the tree, which I informed him of.)  Instead, we rocked the couch potato thing and kind of bummed out the whole weekend.  A week and a half after Thanksgiving, I finally re-arranged the living room to make room for the Christmas tree, but the spot sat empty.  

Finally, I found a tiny little bit of my Christmas spirit.  And I do mean tiny.  Like, this much:


I wrapped gifts.  And did my Christmas cards.  Technically, this was the last bunch of my cards.  I did the first 24, but then I ran out.  I stuck that batch in the mail and then did these, which are sitting in the mailbox as I type this to go out on Monday.  I was so proud to get all of these gifts wrapped, but I didn't get to finish all of my wrapping because I ran out of paper.  So I dug deep and found a little more Christmas spirit and went to the Hallmark store yesterday and got some more paper to finish the wrapping.  Why Hallmark, you ask?  I love that they have the cutting lines on the back of their paper.  I hate buying paper that doesn't have those lines.  Plus, they had a sale going on for all of their holiday paper, buy one roll, get a 2nd roll for $1.  So, I finished the wrapping, and ended up with a stack of gifts that look like this:


I absolutely love wrapping gifts (as long as they're in perfectly shaped boxes) but I despise decorating them, so rather than deal with decorating them right away I stuck Post-Its with the recipient's name on each box.  I'm wondering if I can get away with just giving gifts with the Post-Its still attached.

Among all of the wrapping, I found the motivation to decorate the tree, so that's done as well...but other than that, the house is totally bare.  Has anyone else ever had serious issues getting in to the Christmas spirit?

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