12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 10 | Packaging

I really enjoy wrapping gifts. I always have. I do think it is more fun during the holidays, though. I love all the options for wrapping paper, bows, tags, etc. This year, we had a few gifts that needed to be mailed. I'm not one to just ship them in a boring box. For some reason, I didn't do a lot of wrapping, though. Each gift got wrapped in  a pretty tissue paper, before it was put in the box, but that was all. It's the rest of the packaging that I am excited about!! :D

While browsing the dollar store a few days ago looking for some mini elf-sized items for our elf, I found this faux snow!!! I knew I had to do something with it, so I grabbed 3 bags!! I already had somewhat of an idea how I wanted to package the boxes, but this was going to have to be added in!

I had these little wooden things (?) I'm not really sure what they are for. I've had them for a while. Maybe tied to a gift?? Anyways...I had Joy, Merry, HoHoHo, and Peace. Each box got one. See the pretty tissue paper?? This box is for my brother (mostly my niece) Her favorite color is red, so I wrapped her gifts in various red tissue papers. The bag is for my sister in law. It has some of the sugar scrub in it that I shared yesterday.

We love getting a real tree every year! We had a few clippings left over, so I added some pieces to the boxes. I also got a giant bag of cinnamon scented pine cones, and had some left over, so everyone got one or two of those, too!! :D

 And then...in went the snow!!

I may have added a little too much, but my parents are in Key West, and my brother and  his family are in Texas! I think they could use a little snow in their lives. Even if it is fake! I just hope they don't hate me too much when it comes time to clean it all up!! :D Hahaha....This stuff is no joke! Little L got into the bag and spilled it everywhere! The little beads don't like to be picked up so easy!

How would you feel about opening a box full of "snow"??

12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 9 | Sugar Scrub

Today's craft is all about the scrubs! Sugar scrubs, that is. ;) And three different kinds, to be exact.

This is probably one of the easiest and fastest gifts you could make for someone, and the possibilities are endless!


Here are the ingredients we used for the first two:
White sugar
Baby oil
Essential oil

The first two we made were with plain old white sugar. I added about 1 cup of sugar to a bowl. We then measured out 1/4 cup baby oil. This is the only oil I had on hand, so that is what I used. Olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado oil would make excellent alternatives! I then added about 15 drops of essential oil. We did one peppermint, and one grapefruit. They smell delicious!!

 I used separate bowls and spatulas for each one so that I did not have to wash in between. I was on the phone, and it was just easier to grab another bowl! I was done with each one in less than 5 minutes!
Each scrub got put into a little jar with some Christmas colored ribbon and a tag. :)

The brown sugar scrub was a little more involved than that!
The ingredients were:

1 1/2 C Sugar
1/4 Cup Honey
1/4 Cup baby oil
1/2 Cup Oats

As you can see, this one has more to it. I was able to divide this recipe into 3 jars. Small size mason jars. This means in less than 5 minutes, I made 3 gifts! :) The jars got ribboned and tagged like the first ones, and they were ready to go!!

I have no idea why I didn't get a photo of all three jars together. I really thought I did since they all looked so pretty...

And, of course, I had to make some for myself! You will want to, also! Your hands will thank you!!


 Tomorrow I will be showing you how they got packaged along with out gifts that had to be shipped out! I can't wait. I'm very excited to share! You should be, too! ;)

Head over to Facebook for a sneak peek!



If you would like to know more about Young Living Essential oils, or purchase any, you can view the website HERE  My Member number is 2322868 :D
You can also feel free to message me about any information you would like! :)

12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 8 | Cookies

Who doesn't love cookies?? K and I made some delicious sugar cookies. The dough came together pretty effortlessly, there was no time waiting around for it to chill, and when they came out of the oven...perfection!!

I found the recipe on THIS site. I am going to share the ingredients and directions here, but I highly recommend heading over to that link as soon as you can. There are bunches of great cookie recipes there!! :)

Let's get started! We gathered all of our ingredients:
1 Cup butter, softened
1 Cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups all purpose flour

And then got to work following the directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. In the bowl of your mixer cream butter and sugar until smooth.
3. Beat in extracts and egg.
4. In a separate bowl combine baking powder with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients. The dough will be very stiff. If it becomes too stiff for your mixer turn out the dough onto a countertop surface. Wet your hands and finish off kneading the dough by hand.
5. DO NOT CHILL THE DOUGH. Divide into workable batches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut. You want these cookies to be on the thicker side (closer to 1/4 inch rather than 1/8).
6. Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

K always likes to have his own dough to play with while I am doing the hard parts. I think he could sit and play with dough all day!

Once all the dough was rolled out, we cut as many shapes as we could until there was not enough dough left to make another cookie. The extra was added to K's pile. :)

 K really enjoyed painting on all the cookies with the cookie markers!

 This one was my favorite!

 Can you tell which ones were decorated by K? :)

 At the end, we squeezed a big pile of the white frosting on to the last cookie and added some sprinkles.

 Of course, we had to do a little taste test to make sure they were good! I think they passed! What do you think?

We really enjoyed making these cookies, and we will probably be making them again soon since they were so easy!