I always take the time to remember this day. I try to go to some sort of presentation every year but it is hard with 2 small children that can’t sit still, but I at least pause and have a moment of silence at 11am on this day.
We wear a poppy
On Remembrance Day,
And at eleven
We stand and pray.
Wreaths are put
Upon a grave.
As we remember
Our soldiers brave.
- author unknown
Another super easy week as I have to work 2 days and I plan to be starting my baking for Christmas as well.
Munchin #1 and I are going to make some pumpkin muffins (some left over pumpkin to deal with) and then I am going to be baking cookies and squares so that will take care of any other junkie snacks for the rest of the month! So I’ll be baking lots but I’ll share that plan with you next Monday.
Enjoy your long weekend!
November is here and whether you are following my 4 weeks of Christmas or not, you will be thinking of gifts and with that comes gift wrapping. Did you know that half of the paper consumed in the U.S. every year is used to wrap and decorate consumer products? Canada isn’t much better, paper products account for 1/3 of Canada’s waste. Another fact that I didn’t really know about was that manufacturing water is the largest water consumable…eek! I have always been one to recycle (which saves billions of trees a year when Canadians recycle) and I have been going paperless over the last year both at work and at home. I am glad to be doing my part and I want to go even farther by making my gift wrapping more eco-friendly as well…that is my challenge to myself this Christmas.
So great ideas that I have found online are -
1 - Tulle, lace or other semi-transparent fabric.
Use this to wrap gift baskets instead of several sheets of cellophane and plastic ribbon. The clear cellophane tears easily and isn’t something most folks would think to save and reuse anyway. You can use flowers or smaller tree ornaments to decorate it as well.
2 – Wired fabric ribbon.
I don’t know about you but I can never get that plastic ribbon to curl up nicely, but if you used wired ribbon then you can curl it on your fingers (or something else that is round) and you have these nice and elegant ribbons on your packages.
3 - Paper gift bags.
You can always buy nice gift bags at the dollar stores and most people reuse these all the time and they can be recycled when they are starting to get beat up looking.
4 - Fabric bags.
These have been popping up all over the place and can sometimes be found at dollar stores as well. I am going to attempt to make a few of these this year, I think that they are great for those host gifts that I bring places (for example, wine). I found this tutorial to make a fabric gift bag that I am going to follow but have some idea’s to make them a bit fancier…I’ll post a tutorial in the next few weeks.
5 - Furoshiki.
Otherwise known as Japanese fabric folding, this technique is basically origami with fabric instead of paper. I found this chart showing all the ways you can wrap using fabric on many websites but decided to link the one to the government of Japan’s website - Furoshiki gift wrapping styles.
6 – Fabric
I have also found some cute ways to make fabric like wrapping paper by using ribbon…I am hoping to get some made up to use for wrapping some of the adult gifts I have, the wrapping fabric is part of the gift then as well. I am also going to make a printable that you can use to print off the instructions for wrapping. Tutorial to come during week 4ish but I have found this great tutorial that I am going to follow before trying some other ribbon ideas.
7 - Brown paper packages
This is the method I plan to use for most of my wrapping, I am going to purchase a bunch of unbleached brown craft paper to wrap with and accent your packages with ribbons, twine, stamps and colored paper cut outs. I think that it will look beautiful under the tree, it will be unified but dressed up with pretty embellishments. I have some cute ideas and I will post pictures and “how to’s” when I get my wrapping all finished up during Week 4.
Of course Martha Stewart has some great ideas, here is one -
8 - Canning jars.
If you make some baking to give away that is in jars it is basically all wrapped up already, all you need to do is pretty them up a bit. If you are a sewer you could cut out a circle of fabric and tie it on the top with twisted ribbon or twine. Or for those none sewers, you could just take some paper and cut into a circle and place on top with ribbon or twine. And even easier for those small jars, use a seasonal cupcake wrapper…they fit great! Then just add a label and embellishment and you have a very pretty gift to give away.
9 - Plain paper boxes usually designed for Chinese takeout food.
These are perfect for homemade candies and other baked goods. They are also low on packaging and can be decorated with stamps or glue-on gift tags. Easily available at Micheals but if someone has found them at a dollar store or Walmart, please let me know!
10 - Gift box with a removable top.
You see these types of gifts on TV all the time, and they are great because you can use them over and over again, year after year. Just add a fabric ribbon and bow on the top and you are done, easy peasy.
11 - Organic elements.
If you are tying fabric around a gift, consider tucking in rosemary, holly or ivy into the knot. It adds a little something extra, and can easily be composted afterward, making it a perfect green gift wrapping idea.
So once you are done all the fun of shopping don’t let the fun and excitement end there, take the chance and use the task of wrapping to be creative while staying green! Plus, if you take the time to creatively wrap the items it will show that a lot of thought and energy went into the WHOLE gift, not just the package on the inside.
(Actually, I think that Will Ferrell is yelling Santa but you get the gist – that is one of my favorite Christmas movies…hehe)
This week is all about starting gift shopping and organizing for all the gifts you want to make…and lets not forget gift wrapping! This is, quite honestly, not my favorite part of Christmas. I love making things for people for presents (even if I am not sure if people like getting home-made stuff) and getting things for the kids as they truly appreciate what you get them…well, the little kids do anyway. I tend to find in this day and age that people just go out and buy what they want or need and there is nothing left to give them at Christmas. I would much rather just get together, have drinks and play games. But, here is the gifts week anyway!
There are things that you can do to make Christmas more fun and affordable, there is drawing names, Secret Santa, setting price limits, Chinese gift exchange and making gifts. These can all be fun and easy to do, and are much lighter on the pocket…all of which lower the hassle of expensive gifts and budgeting, which creates much less stress over the holidays…now doesn’t that sound like a way better way to spend the holidays!
Another reason that I start to organize things this early is that I either have to plan a trip to a major city (which takes organizing with my husband to make sure I can go without 2 young kids) and I buy a lot online, so you have to get things ordered with plenty of time to be delivered.
So here are the things that I consider and get ready during Gifts Week -
This year I am trying to make all my gift wrappings eco-friendly. I’ll have a couple of posts this week to show some options for that.
Happy Shopping everyone!!
Hi All, how is the planning and organizing going for the first week of Christmas chaos?!? I have my Christmas card list all ready and I am half way through figuring out all the Christmas gifts. I just have a supply shopping list to get done up and finalize the list before my big shopping trip next week. More on the gifts and shopping on Monday’s post though.
Here is my weekly meal plan for next week. I tried to keep it really simple with a bit more packaged food as my hubby is going to be home with the boys for 3 days and 2 nights by himself…so simple is better when you aren’t used to that (but watch, the boys will be perfectly behaved and they will have a blast…then they will be demon’s when I get back! haha)
So I am making lots of easy leftover stuff the beginning of the week and we will make cookies and muffins for snacks during the week. Pretty simple!
Ok, so here is what my porch looked like this year…
The bat in the second picture flies around and has red eyes, and the last picture is just one of those skeletons dressed up but the wind was really blowing yesterday so it was scary according to my 3 year old. I normally have “spider webs” all over the porch, coming down from the ceiling, but I can’t lift my one arm above shoulder level right now so that didn’t happen.
This year I put in a red light so make it even more spookier…would have put in a black light but I didn’t think of it in time to buy one…maybe next year!
I hope everyone had a safe and spookier Halloween this year!!
I am sure that there is a lot of you out there that have done this with an office job (that is where I learned how to do this) and I started to use mail merging to get my labels for all my Christmas cards (and some other occasions that I have had mass mailings for). It is very handy for Christmas since I have a spreadsheet that I use every year, I make a new page for each year and copy over all the addresses that I am using again. Then I can change any addresses that have changed during the year and add any new addresses of people I have met that I am also sending a card to.
So here is how you do it!
You will need -
Your addresses
Peel & Stick labels (Avery or other brand)
1. Put your addresses in a spreadsheet or use the one I provided here. (This can take a while the first time but think of how easy it will be next year!) Make sure to have separate columns for the name and addresses like my spreadsheet has.
2. Open up a blank Word document and go to your mailing option and choose “Start Mail Merge” and pick labels from the options. (There are so many version out there of Word that I cannot direct you how to exactly find the mailing options.) In the labels option you can pick out a template, it usually has all the Avery options (which are the most popular) but has a ton of other ones as well. Check the packaging to see what the template # is. Select “OK” and it should open a page that shows your label lines.
3. Now you can go to the Mailing Options (if they aren’t at the top of your screen like they are on mine). You are going to pick “Select Recipients” and choose from an existing list. This will allow you to find the address spreadsheet that you created, once you choose that it will ask you to choose which page, make sure you pick the year you want (important for later years).
I picked the 2011$ sheet.
4. Now you are going to take a quick look at the list, “Edit Recipient List” and make sure that there aren’t any blank lines selected (it is best to make sure you don’t have any extra spaces in your spreadsheet. Also double check that the columns are in the right order, mine had the Town & Province one after the Postal Code, I just clicked on the one and dragged it to the proper location.
Hit “OK” when you are done going through it…it should have <<next record>> in the labels.
5. Now you are going to insert the merge fields that you want, so click “Insert Merge Field” and you should get a list that has the same titles as your spreadsheet. Make sure you click to insert all the required headings, then you can close that window and move the headings around how you want them.
Before -
After -
6. Now you want to copy and paste the Address headings into all the label cells MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THE <<NEXT RECORD>> AT THE START OF EACH LABEL!! (That is very important or you will end up with a full sheet of one address and you will have to manually ask it to put in each address…)
7. Now you can “Preview Results” and it will put the addresses in for you. Use this to check that you are happy with the spacing and things…make any adjustments that you want while you only have to do it to these few label cells.
8. This is the final step, you can “Finish & Merge” your addresses into the labels. You can do this a couple of ways;
I suggest you merge into a document if this is the first time you have done this, then you know they are right and you don’t waste labels. But if this is something you have done lots before and you know it will work then go ahead and just print.
Now you have all your mailing labels ready to go as easy as that. It may seem like it takes a long time when you read this tutorial but it only takes me 5 minutes to get all my labels ready to print. You can also do fun things like add a cute picture to the labels, like a Christmas one, so that they are all themed for mailing.
I hope that this helps take time away from labeling all your Christmas Cards. To save even more time I print return labels, mailing labels, get stamps that are peel & stick and the envelopes are also peel & seal - then you can get them stuffed and ready to go in no time.
Good luck and happy labeling!
