Christmas in July 7.19.2021

 

Woo-hoo! I got a lot of Christmas shopping done this past weekend. Target and Walmart had lots of toys on clearance and I picked up some bargains. Today I got out my gift wrap supplies and am busy wrapping gifts. (Yes, my bed is my 'table' today).

It truly is "the most wonderful time of the year"!

Christmas Time's a'Comin'

 Time is flyin' by! I have "Fall Fever", a serious case of it and began decorating the house for Fall this week. Even though the temps are hovering around 115 degrees.

And you know what comes after Fall... Christmas!

I'm busy buying and wrapping gifts. This year I'm using gift boxes and gift bags for all of the presents. This past weekend I managed to wrap gifts and fill stockings with stuffers.

This year I'm using a new method for the stocking. In the past I used gift sacks and put each person's stuffers in their sack, filling the stockings the night before Family Christmas. It worked... for a while. But the past few years as the Grands got older I often bought stuffers that were too large for the stockings. 

So this year, I'm using the Hallmark bags like the one below. I have one bag per family. I put the stuffers in the stockings and then set them in the bag for their family. So far, so good! I discovered yesterday that I'm done with one grandchild using this method. All of the stockings are slightly different sizes, but I use a number limit on stocking stuffers (based on the age of the recipient.) The adults get the same amount, but the one year old gets less than the 11 year old.

I had to laugh yesterday when we Skyped with our family in KS. I could see that my DIL had started decorating for Fall. I commented on it and she said "yes, I just NEED a change". I completely agree with her. I can't control much about my life right now, but I CAN control my environment!

Christmas in July Day Eighteen

Let's talk about gift wrap. There are so many creative suggestions for gift wrapping your Christmas presents. 

Last year I made snowmen for my family and grouped them around the tree. The  three layers of the snowmen held an ornament, wrapped gifts and stocking stuffers. I loved looking at them every day! I tried to make the faces as individual as possible. My daughter Katie bought everyone a beanie for Christmas and we placed them on the heads of the snowmen. I doubt if I'll ever top that in the  future.

In past years I've used a specific gift wrap for each person, wrapped everything in plain paper and instead of gift tags used a photo of  the recipient as the gift tag, and wrapped each family in a specific gift wrap.

This year I'm wrapping the gifts in boxes or gift bags. I think I'm still recovering from making all those snowmen last year!

Here's a couple of cute ideas I've seen on Pinterest that I'm putting in my Christmas future file.

I love making Scrabble tile crafts. It is so hard, though, to find Scrabble games that still have the tiles in them. In order to do this I'll have to search and see if I can buy the tiles online. I'm sure I can.

This one is cute and would be a good follow up to the snowman Christmas.

I enjoy gift wrapping, but I'm not very good at it. I think that's the real reason that I'm using boxes/bags this year. Plus, I'm really getting into the "keep it simple" way of doing things!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year ~ 20

Remember back in July when I told you how I was going to wrap my family's gifts this year? In a family of Snowmen?

Well, I did it!

Christmas Time's a'Comin'!

I was inspired the other day so I laid out my December blog posts. Now to actually start writing them.

I'm assuming Hobby Lobby must have received most of their Christmas merchandise as I got an email from them that all Christmas is now 40% off. Need to get over there... more for inspiration than to purchase. I have so much Christmas stuff that this year I really want to focus on re-purposing what I have.

I've made a start on my gift purchases. I'm eager to finish one grandchild so I can start to make his/her snowman. I went to the Teacher's store and bought rolls of while craft paper. They come in three different lengths so I'm hoping there won't be a lot of waste when I start wrapping the boxes. It did occur to me the other day to wonder where I will store the assembled snowmen until time to put the tree up. But I decided to worry about that another day.

I'm very optimistic about my stocking stitching this year. I have two stockings to go and I think there's every chance that I will finish both of them in time for Christmas. Hallelujah!

In the meantime, I have a summer cold accompanied as usual by  Laryngitis and the forecast is calling for temps around 115 degrees the middle of this week...

Christmas in July: Day 5

This is what I'm going to use for gift wrap this year.

There, now that I've put it in writing, I REALLY have to do it!

My daughter sent me this last year as a suggestion for gift wrap. It's cute, but it was too late in the season for me to pull it off.

This year our entire family will be together for family Christmas. That's 16 people. When you multiply that by the number of gifts, the tree would be swamped. So I'm going to make the snowmen instead. I can't wait to see what our tree looks like with 16 snowmen of varying sizes gathered around it.

I've started collecting the boxes and will try painting one first. If that doesn't work, I'll find some white craft paper and wrap them. I've also started collecting sticks/twigs to use as their arms. Instead of the cards on the front, I'm going to attach each person's Christmas stocking. The snowman will hold the stocking and that will identify which snowman goes to who.

I am so excited to see how this works!!

Christmas in July Day Twleve: Gift Wrap

Remember my love/hate relationship with stockings? Well, I have the same relationship with gift wrap. I love to wrap gifts, I hate my lack of skill in this area. My ends are never equal. I use way too much tape. I get frustrated when I can't make beautiful bows. And equally frustrated with my lack of imagination when it comes to wrapping oddly shaped gifts.

Fortunately for me, I can go on Pinterest and stare for hours at beautifully wrapped packages. A few years ago I even tried one of the examples I found on Pinterest. Just let me say that my effort didn't look anything like I hoped it would.

Here are some creative, and fun examples of gift wrap. And no, I won't be trying any of them this year!

Christmas in July: Gift Wrap Pt 2

So, you may remember that I wrote about gift wrap ideas here. I had to make a decision about how I'm going to wrap gifts this year since I've started shopping and the gifts are piling up. I decided to wrap in colorful varieties of Christmas wrap, but I'm using black/white photos for the gift labels.

Since my grandkids are two and four years old now, I thought this would be a good way to include them in playing Santa. As long as the gift is not fragile or heavy, they can look at the photo and deliver the gift to the right person. I made various sizes to fit on the packages appropriately. I love the b/w photo because it stands up off of the paper.

I'm looking forward to see what my kids think of this year's gift wrap!

Christmas in July: Gift Wrap

I will be the first to admit that I am a terrible gift wrapper. I think I have really good ideas, but they somehow don't translate to my fingers as I'm wrapping. I have been doing a lot of "research" into simple ways of achieving unique gift wraps. 

A couple of years ago, I wrapped each person's gifts in a specific paper. That way I didn't need gift tags, I just knew by the paper what gift went to which person. It was ok, but I really didn't like the uniformity of it. I want to come up with a really cool idea for this year. I thought I'd share some of my "research" with you.

courtesy of Pinterest

http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/2012/12/wrapping-up-christmas.html


http://www.stylisheve.com/stylish-christmas-gift-wrapping-ideas/


http://eabdesigns.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/11/index.html


http://sarahostman.com/blog/christmas-gift-wrapping/

I really like the idea of putting the receiver's photo on the gift. I think I might try that one this year. Do you have any really cool gift wrap ideas or tips? Please share!

Let the Wrapping Begin!

See what I've been up to today? Wrapping Christmas gifts. I stumbled across a great buy last week for all of my girls and just couldn't resist getting this Gift Wrap Season started. It may also have had something to do with the Dream Book arriving last week! Anyway, as you can see, I've got seven gifts bought and wrapped. Actually the count is eight, one gift didn't make it into the photo.

Last year I chose one pattern of gift wrap for each family member. It looked cool under the tree, but it wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be. This year I'm going back to using multiple patterns for everyone. I use Santa patterns for all of the grandkids and then whatever for everyone else.

As I've stated before, I buy gifts starting in May (usually) and wrap them and apply a gift tag before storing them. I have a chart that keeps track of my budget and of the gifts I've purchased and wrapped. This way I don't forget what I've already purchased and I don't go over budget unless it's deliberate. Have you started any holiday preparations at your house? I'd enjoy hearing about them...

Gift Wrap

I love gift wrap. It's a part of the paper addiction that I have. My paper addiction is for all things paper: cups, napkins, scrapbook paper, note cards, greeting cards, gift tags, envelopes, lists, post-it notes, bows, ribbons, gift wrap... you get the picture.

I've never been one to wrap each person's gifts in the same paper. I like variety. I like for the presents under my tree to be a variety of designs, colors, styles. The only time I've strayed from that is when my granddaughter arrived. We do wrap her gifts in a paper used exclusively for her.

As I've stated before, I start my Christmas shopping early, in May. I wrap each gift when I get it home and place a gift tag on it. I store the wrapped gifts until the day after Thanksgiving when I put the bows and ribbons on and place them under the Christmas tree.

I just need to pause here and say that although I like to wrap gifts, I'm not good at it.

This year as I was placing the bows and ribbons on the piles of presents, I decided to change things up for Christmas 2011. The first change I'm making is that each person's gifts will be wrapped in one paper. One design for Dan, one for me, etc. The second change I'll be implementing is that I'm doing away with ribbon. I'll only be using bows.

I'm not saying this will be a permanent change, but I'm excited to try it out this year. Especially the elimination of the ribbons. I totally suck at ribbons.

Part of the reason for these changes is that the sheer volume of gifts under our tree can be overwhelming. This year there will be gifts for 13 immediate family members. Just the passing out of the presents can take quite a bit of time. I figure that if each person's gifts are wrapped in one paper, it will be easier to pass them out. We won't have to look at the name tag to know which gift belongs to who. Although I do plan to still put tags on. (remember my paper addiction...)

Do you have a gift wrap tradition? I'd enjoy hearing it...