Christmas Crafting

So I rewarded my nose-to-the-grindstone last several weeks at work (putting together two retreats, parent meetings, teacher meetings, you name it it got done) with some focused stamping and crafting time. Here in this post are the fruits of those crafting labors.

But first, the good news... my son called to tell me that he and his girlfriend are coming down to visit for Christmas! Woohoo!!! They'll be here the day after Christmas, and they'll stay in the area until New Year so he says they'll spend a couple of those days with us! What an AWESOME Christmas gift!

Kat and I spent several hours working and here's what we came up with for my teacher/volunteer/co-worker gifts. As you can see, we are totally loving that curly label punch and its coordinating (sold separately) stamp set! The tall skinny items contain individual packets of Cafe Mocha (I've posted a photo of the included packet for you).

We made some more 2-4-6-8 pouch boxes, this time containing an assortment of mini holiday chocolates (3 per pouch). We used a bunch of scrapbooking paper and ribbon that we had stashed away, which is why these are not traditional Christmas colors. I kind of like the variety!

The little square boxes are those way cool peppermint patty boxes (directions found on Rochelle's blog). I don't have my square punch anymore (a story for another time!), so I used the curly label punch for the window instead. No scallop circle punch either, so I used a big snowflake from one of Stampin' Up!'s retired sets and cut it out. Worked okay, I think. But I much preferred putting four little Hershey kisses (candy cane, cherry cordial, mint truffle, pretty much every kind of kiss you could get) in there instead. They fit quite nicely, and I stuck them to the bottom of the box so they wouldn't float around inside.

Next, though we actually started our crafting session with these, are the Ghirardelli chocolate holders. Directions can be found here. So quick and easy! And yes, we had to sample the chocolates since we'd never actually bought these before... Yummy!!

Here's that little box from a previous post, decorated at last.












The next series of shots shows everything put together into little gift sets. Just one sample of each color set so you get the idea. We have LOTS of these!







































Lastly, we have a modified gift card holder. The gift certificates that had to go into it are a little longer than gift cards, so I changed the pattern a little to accommodate them. The directions for the original gift card holder can be found here. I packaged the gift certificate holder with two of the Ghirardelli packets behind it (it's a husband and wife team) into a cello bag and added a topper.


















Okay, that's it for now! Getting back to the crafting so as to be ready to give these gifts at this weekend's parties!