Molly's Gift!

I love wrapping baby gifts! I did a onesie flower pot bouquet for Sweet Baby James and a Tiger Onesie Set for Nolan's gift.

This is Molly's gift, complete with her initials; MTV, Molly Tate Vardell!



Wrapped in cellophane with a pink satin bow. Everything her tush needs, butt paste, powder, and wipes.



Diapers around the back of the pink and chocolate brown diaper caddy!



Cute little bundle for a cute little bundle!

Baby Gift!!

Babies, babies everywhere! It seems like with my group of friends we are blessed with an average of 3 new babies a year! Well today we are "sprinkling" Alison's baby boy!

Since we are in the process of selling the house all my gift wrapping supplies are packed away. So I grabbed a clear plastic merch bag from work that we use for shipping online orders and (it's free!).

And then ran to a gift store this morning to buy a yard of orange ribbon and they gave me two remnants (for free!).
Here's what I came up with:



Tiny newborn tiger shoes tied to the top!



Then flip it over and I added this bib:



- Congrats Ali and John!!

Fancy Frames

Every year I get together with my best friends for a holiday party and gift exchange. Well in the past there are usually different themes to the gifts. This year we are doing the home made, recycled, or green gifts. We do the whole steal the gift from someone else if you want to, it creates some fun and hilarious drama.

I home made my gift and it was super easy.
Supplies:

• Buttons, different shapes and sizes.
• Photo Frames- (mine are from Dollar Tree and held a 3x3 photo)
• Spray Paint- only if you want to change the color of your frames
• Glue- I used white craft glue.
• Ribbon for hanging- a large grosgrain ribbon and a small ribbon for the scarf.
• Scissors
• Fancy paper or fabric.
• Tiny twigs for snowman arms.

I forgot to snap a before picture of the front of the frame before I sprayed it silver, it was a washed out brown color. I got one of the back so you can see the color before. It looks good in sparkley silver. Remember! Silver spray paint is my favorite December thing!After they were spray painted silver:

I then glued some brown grosgrain ribbon on the back to make a hanger.

Then cut out some fancy paper and insert it in the frame and started messing around with my button collection.


I started arranging the buttons to make a snowman and a tree. It was so easy!! The tree had a "star" that was a small rhinestone that I found in my buttons.

 I added twig arms, from my yard, and a scarf to my snowman.

 Everything was glued down to the paper with craft glue. This project took in total about 35 minutes. (Probably less for someone else, but I had to keep getting up to yell at the dogs.) Plus they were really inexpensive! I had the majority of the supplies on hand already! Shhhhhh!! Don't tell whoever gets my gift this year!! If you are the recepient of this gift this year I paid One Million Dollars for these!

*UPDATE*- My gift got stolen and stirred up some gift exchange drama!! It was a fun night had by all!

Gift Tag!

Gift wrapping and tag making are fun for me and I made these tags a while back for a bottle.

I used my Congrats stamp and added 3 buttons to the tag. Also I wrapped a fabric grosgrain ribbon around the bottle.

The glue wasnt dry yet when I took these pictures.... Make sure to use fabric glue to close the ends.

This was so simple and easy to do with materials I had around the house. I think it totally dressed up this "presentation" of the bottle and made it unique! Perfect for holiday, birthday, and congrats gift!

Alpha Stamps and Koozies!

I love my Martha Stewart Alpha Stamp Set. I use it all of the time! I make tags with it. See BABY tag here.
I also used it on a wedding gift for Jenna and Tom.

I bought super cute (and inexpensive) foam koozies for beverages. I then stamped BRIDE and GROOM on each one. They turned out great!

I also made a tag for Jenna and Tom to go with the koozies:

I wish the alpha stamp set had numbers in it too.. My handwriting is not so good looking next to the stamps. Ill just have to save up my monies for the numeric set!

Baby Gift!

I havent had time to do a lot of creative projects lately, so when it comes to wrapping presents recently I have unloaded some of that creative energy onto it!

Shannon's baby girl is due soon, so we had a shower to celebrate. I was in charge of wrapping the gift. I wrapped the box in aqua colored tissue paper and used aqua colored ribbon. I also made a tag that I stamped BABY on, because she hasnt decided on a baby name yet. (Is it going to be Payton??)

I found these really cute felt baby bottle and pacifier cut out shapes at the dollar store. They were attached to organza bags that I just cut off. Then I tied the shapes to to the ribbon. There was still some organza left on the shapes so I left it on there for added pretty stuff.

I think the stamped tag is the best part though!

I love my Martha Stewart alpha stamp set!! I use it for everything! I dont buy cards anymore, I just stamp tags!

The pictures dont really do it justice. It turned out really cute, if I do say so myself!

Popcorn!

Popcorn by far is my favorite snack. I like it salty, sweet, savory, and spicy. So when I came across the Catamount Microwave Popcorn Popper I just had to have it! Made from borosilicate glass or laboratory glass, it is heat resitant up to 675 degrees. You can add butter to the melting lid or not, your choice, plus there is no need to add any oil. There are also no added chemicals like you get sometimes with the processed bag of microwave popcorn. I could go on and on of the benefits of cooking popcorn in this thing. Not forgetting to mention that a bag of popcorn kernels, enough for at least 30-50 batches of popcorn, costs about $1.99 at the grocery store! Compare that to a 6-pack box of microwave popcorn, usually around $3.99-$4.99.

Catamount Popcorn Popper

It tastes just like the homemade popcorn my mom used to make in her old 1980's electric machine. Minus all the cooking oil!

1980's Electric Popcorn Popper

Because I love my Catamount Popcorn maker so much I decided to give Jenna and Tom one as a wedding present!! I normally try not to stray too far of the registry list for wedding presents, but for something that I use so much, I thought they wouldn't mind!

I included a jar of popcorn kernels, some popcorn napkins, and a melted butter pourer to the gift.

I hope Jenna and Tom love this as much as I do!!

Salt for Christmas?

Yes, I gave my friends salt for Christmas. Does it have a deeper traditional meaning, you ask? A metaphor to represent the night Joseph gave Mary a salt dried hunk of lamb right before she gave birth to baby Jesus? No, blasphemy! I totally made all that up, plus you can't eat meat on Christmas Eve!

Ok, that was weird, but I think my salt gifts looked really cute!

First I started with all this stuff below. (Which is a scary picture considering my hoarding past. Or I mean my past, present, and future. I swear these were all gifts! I will give them all away, all except the one blue one that I'm keeping. God I'm sick in the head.)

It is a Martha Stewart mess! Tiny metal colanders in vintage blue and yellow colors and salt cellars in flower and leaf shapes! Oh and don't forget the Martha Stewart signature magnets!

So here's where I put the salt and pepper. I thought what else could go with salt cellars??

Then I wrapped it all up in cellophane and tied a ribbon! Cute right?

Oh, and don't forget the magnet I attached to the front! It stuck to the metal colander!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

The First NOEL!

I am having a Holiday Giveaway!

Check out my NOEL Tags I made this year for my Holiday decorating! 

To win your very own set of NOEL tags, all you have to do is be my follower or become my follower and you get one entry into the giveaway random.org drawing!  If you tell someone to become my follower, leave me a comment saying that you told someone to become my follower, and then you get two entries into the giveaway drawing! I will draw the follower randomly and announce the winner at noon (central) on December 10th!

Thanks, Happy Following and Happy Holidays!

(All winners must be in the Continental United States and must be 18 years or older.)

Growing onesies!

My friend Jessica went to a baby shower last week and saw onesies on the mom-to-be's registry and decided to create her very own flower pot-o-onesies!

Jessica said she picked up the white flower pot at Ikea for $1.99! What a steal!

I love how colorful and bold the 'flowers' are! And the crinkle paper grass makes me so happy!

The candy hued ribbon matches perfectly with the bright sports themed onesies!

I love the football rattle and green tag all wrapped up with the polka dotted celophane!

If you would like a step-by-step tutorial on how to make your own flower pot onesies check out my post on it here!

Jessica has a really good green thumb and took to growing some of her own onesies and they turned out so great! Thanks for the photos!

Thanks Y'all!

Thanks to all for my sweet comments, support, and for being my followers! In celebration of Halloween and getting sixteen followers today, I'm going to have my first ever give away! YAY!

I appreciate y'all so much that I'm selecting one of you lucky followers at random (courtesy of Random.org) to receive a complimentary set of my BOO tags! (Shoot me an email at Swiss Avenue if you wish to NOT be entered.)

Here are my tags in action.

Note: Apothocary Jars and other decorations are not included in this give away!

Tags (three of them) will come hole punched, with a coordinating ribbon, and ready for your use! They can be used like in the photo above or hung anywhere in the house to add to your own Halloween Decor!

The winner will be announced in tomorrow's posting. So check back tomorrow and if you are the winner please email me at Swiss Avenue with your mailing address. If I get any followers from now until tomorrow's posting they will be entered unless I hear otherwise. So if you have been thinking about following me, NOW is the time!

Don't forget to email me at Swiss Avenue if you wish to NOT be included.

Fine Print: Due to shipping costs I can only ship to the followers addresses in the Continental US. No purchase necessary. Winner must be 18 years or older.

Onesie Flower Pot

For Lindy's Sprinkle I grew some onesies! Not really, I did buy a set of five onesies like these cuties:

and then folded them like this:

Then in half again like this:

Then I rolled it from one end to create a "rose" shape and held it tight with a rubber band:

Then, I used chopsticks that I painted green as the stems and stuck them in a orange flower pot filled with styrofoam and moss at all different heights:

To cover the rubber bands I tied on some white rick rack that I had:

(Ummmm if you are sober this picture is clear.. Guess I'm wasted.)

I also then added some faux greenery.. is that taboo?

Nothing this cute could be taboo, could it?

I added some grosgrain ribbon as "leaves" for the onsie rose petals.

Then I wrapped it all up with some ribbon to make it a presentable gift! I had to use iridescent cellophane because I ran out of clear. Man, fake greenery, rubberbands, and now iridescent cellophane? What am I turning into, my mother?? Just kidding Mom, love you!

I added a sweet little gift tag with a Congrats stamp and a glittery "It's a boy!" trinket that I found at Home Goods and then this painted lady was ready to go out for a Sprinkle!

Lindy said it was too pretty to unwrap!! But when she does she will find some cute newborn boy onesies, so cute and practical!

Have y'all seen those diaper cakes? Hummm another cute practical present idea.. I may have to save that one for a future Sprinkle.

Let me know if you have made one before and I'll need a thorough tutorial with that as well, thanks!