Happy Donut Mail

Since Christmas is practically right around the corner, it seemed fitting that my littles and I should take a moment this month and create a laundry list of things and people we are thankful for in our lives. 

And I thought an even more fun idea would be to not only create a list of things and people to be thankful for but to give those people a small gift as a token of how much we are thankful for them!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I like to share pictures of Happy Mail with you. Happy mail is either stuff I have received in the mail that makes me happy and brightened my day or things I have packaged up to give to someone else to make them happy. Isn't it so fun to get something...a card, a little note, even a small package...in the mail!

The kids thought, "Hey, everyone loves donuts!" and I thought, "Heck ya, they do!" so we took that happy mail idea and ran with it and came up with Happy Donut Mail! 

We spent one weekend making sweet chocolate-dipped donuts with happy orange sprinkles for some sweet people in our lives. Although you could also just buy them at the store or your local donut shop too!

We packaged them up in pretty little kraft boxes I found at Target. And wrapped them in lace and gold tinsel.

And strung a little card on the side of each box with a handwritten note telling each recipient how much we appreciate them, and how we are thankful they are a part of our lives. (Handmade with Love printables found in this post here!)

Then we dropped them off at each recipient's home to brighten up their day like they have brightened up ours!

It was such a fun activity, and something I am sure my littles will remember for years to come! In fact we have plans to do more Happy Donut Mail deliveries in our upcoming weekend plans, how's that for a fun Sunday afternoon project?

The Best Part is an online community that's dedicated to brightening your day--every day. How? By Spreading optimism, one share at a time. The Best Part posts inspirational stories, encouraging quotes, good news and other upbeat items to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram--and encourages fans and followers to share that optimism with their friends. Because when optimism is shared, it grows, making an even more positive impact on our world. Check out what others are sharing on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

This post is brought to you by Folgers and BlogHer.

XOXO,

70 Hugs for My Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday!

He is the big 7-0 today!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!

I saw the most fun birthday package surprise a couple month's ago over at my friend, Katherine Marie's blog. If you have not been to her blog yet, you must give yourself an afternoon....or a long night after the littles go to bed...and just enjoy. She is amazing!

I thought I would do a similar package for my dad. He is so hard to shop for ya know! And well, I hear that grandparents love anything made by their grandchildren ;-)

My dad is allergic to dark/milk chocolate *gasp* who knew that allergy even existed, am I right? So I thought it would be fun to send him 70 hugs using Hershey's seasonal white chocolate and peppermint hugs.

I had the kids come up with a list of 70 things that 'Grandpa Marc is' and then had Noah and Penny write them all out. It was like a homeschool lesson and a gift all in one! Penny even helped me hot glue the hugs to the pennants. It truly was a grandchild-made gift straight from their loving minds and hands :-)

The last thing we did was to decorate the box with some fun washi tape and then we sent it on it's way.

Hope he gets it on time!

XOXO,

TUTORIAL: Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags

I was asked by Joann's to be a part of their Papercrafted Christmas campaign that they are co-hosting with Die Cuts With a View (DCWV).  Me and 11 other bloggers are sharing some fun ideas on how to craft with DCWV scrapbook paper and embellishments this month. How fun!

With Christmas literally weeks away, and the fact that I have gift wrapping on the brain, I thought I would use DCWV's scrapbook paper to make some vintage-inspired Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags. I am always in search of fun ways to label gifts and these make my heart sing, so pretty and so easy to make...perfect for the holidays and more!

Here's what you'll need to make your own:

Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags

DCWV Christmas & Winter Paper Stack

Scissors

DCWV Christmas & Winter Embellishments (optional)

3.5 inch paper doilies

Hot glue

For these rosettes I used the DCWV Christmas & Winter Paper Stack. I found this paper was the perfect weight to make a small sized rosette. You can find this paper stack and a whole lot more from DCWV at Joann's here.

To make the rosettes...
1. Cut a 12 x 12 inch piece of scrapbook paper down to 3 x 12 inches. Starting on the short end, fold the paper back and forth in 1/4 inch increments.
2. Continue to fold the paper like an accordion until the end of the paper.
3. Press the accordion of paper in half and hot glue the ends that meet together.
4. Fan out the rosette and hot glue the other two ends together as well.
Hot glue the rosette onto a paper doily.

The Christmas & Winter Paper Stack also comes with a few pages that include small colored flags and other fun paper tags. I cut the flags out and wrote names onto them.

I also used a scallop paper punch to embellish the name tags a bit more.

You could even embellish the name tags with the coordinating DCWV Christmas & Winter adhesive embellishments, the pack comes with a big variety of pretty choices!

When your Paper Rosette Gift Name Tags are done they should look like this...so cute, right!

Such a perfect addition to your holiday gift wrapping this season!

And here's a coupon from Joann's so you can save when you buy your supplies to make these or an other fabulous project you might have in mind for the holidays: Click Here for Coupon!

 XOXO,

*This post is brought to you by Joann's but all opinions and ideas are 100% my very own :-)

Thankful November: Happy Tags

Here's another fun idea we did as part of Thankful November, where we are doing little acts of kindness each day this month and bringing some good cheer to others (see a few other ideas here and here)

At the beginning of the school year I bought a few packs of journaling cards at Michaels to use as lunch notes for my kids thanks to Ashley's brilliant idea here. I really like journaling cards, and have become quite addicted to them. They are the perfect size for so many things (lunch notes included!) and always have cute fonts and colors. I happened to buy quite a few of the Recollections brand a while back but I also love the Project Life ones too...so pretty! Each pack contains little 3 x 4 inch cards with a writing prompt on each (as they are meant for journaling and/or scrapbooking) but there are always a few of the designs in each pack that have inspirational phrases or cute sayings too.

I thought it would be fun to pick out of few of the cards with inspirational phrases and cute sayings and glue them to a large manilla tag decorated with washi tape. On the other side of the tag I attached a small glassine envelope in which we could tuck in a small token or gift to brighten someone's day.

I bought some gift cards and scratch off lottery tickets to place in some of the envelopes and in others we added a few dollar bills. Then my littles and I ran errands and placed the tags all over leaving a trail of happiness wherever we went.

We left them at the dollar store, the gas pump, the Target cafe, on a vending machine, on a parking meter, with the bananas at the grocery store, next to the cream and sugar at a coffee shop, on a bench at a park, attached to a swing at a playground, and then we handed a few to some cashiers too!

We saw a few people find the tags and I so wish we could have had the time to stick around and watch more as it was so fun to see...I don't think my littles will ever forget this.

Hope this idea inspires you to brighten someone's day!

Thanks for stopping by!

 XOXO,

Simple Sewing Book Review and Giveaway!

Today I am so excited to share with you a book by Katie Lewis, Simple Sewing: 30 Fast & Easy Projects for Beginners. You may also know her from her lovely blog, The Red Kitchen. She wrote a book! How fun is that!! And a darn tootin' pretty good book if I do say so myself.

This book is absolutely perfect for the beginning sewist. I so wish she had written it when I started sewing 4 years ago. And even though I am no where near a beginner I really think this book is pretty great. I love the sheer volume of fun and quick projects she put together. Accessories, Baby, Toys...the list goes on, as you can see from the picture above! And I'll have you know that every project has full color, step-by-step instructions AND 90% of the projects in the book require less than one yard of fabric!

I actually used her Reversible Bib project to make a baby gift for a friend's friend's baby shower (haha, did you get that?) It was the easiest bib I've ever made, using 2 different cotton fabrics to make it reversible...and good for a gender neutral baby shower gift...and a set of snaps instead of the velcro! 

Totally adorable, right?

I paired it with some of the burp cloths I sell in my shop...

And packaged it up all pretty along with a few other fun gifts and sent it on it's way to it's new happy home!

If you'd like to make your own Reversible Baby Bib or any of Katie's other fast and fabulous projects than you will want to enter the giveaway below to win a copy for yourself!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can see more of the book tour over at Kojo-Designs and Ruffles and Stuff.

And you can buy a copy of the book for you or some friends at these retailers:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

XOXO,

Pillowbox Surprises

Here is a fun idea we did as part of our daily Thankful November this month (see more about that here!) These Pillowbox Surprises are super easy to put together and are really fun for your recipients to open.

I was at Target, of all places ;-), one day and found these cute little pillow boxes for $1 on an end cap. They came 3 to a pack so, naturally, I bought a few packs of them! 

They are perfect for dressing up with colorful washi tape and twine.

The only unfortunate thing about them is that they are just a touch too small for a gift card. Darn it. So plan B was that I ended up taping gift cards to the backside and then wrapping them in twine so they were nice and secure.

You could put all sorts of goodies inside but we thought what would be the most fun was to put in a little glittered banner that said, "You Are Special" cause it's nice to hear that you are, isn't it? :-)

I made the banner with my Silhouette using pretty gold glittered scrapbook paper and then hot glued it to some gold twine.

Then I taped the end of the twine with the beginning of the message near the flap of the box and tucked the rest of the message inside nice and gently.

I made a little flag out of washi tape, wrote PULL HERE on it, and taped it to the other end of the twine which we let ever-so-slightly stick out of the end of the box once it was folded closed.

And then, when our recipients opened up their pillow boxes.....

A little message appears :-)

Just a little something for some special people to make their day a little brighter!

I'll share more of our Thankful November ideas next week! Happy weekend to you all!

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,