Newborn Baby "Welcome" gift basket

I always keep a good selection of baby bathing products to hand as on occasion I am asked to make up nappy cakes.

In this basket there are 10 x newborn Pampers dispos. nappies; Johnson's Baby Shampoo/talc/soap/baby bath/oil and moisturising lotion; Winnie the Pooh feeding bottle; Winnie the Pooh groom set; 1 x burp cloth; 1 x popper vest; 1 x muslin square. I also added the 12 x birth announcements I had hand stamped/cut beforehand. Finer details regarding the birth announcements can be found here.

A gift basket similar to this would normally sell for around £28.00 - £30.00 without the birth announcements

End of Term Teacher Appreciation Gifts

I made only 2 of these gifts for 2 teachers:- 1 for a teacher I help out at school and the other for 1 of my eldest daughter's high school teachers who is moving on to a new job. They consisted of a coffee mug, chocolate truffles, cappuccino sachets and completed with a little maze album made from 1 x sheet of 12"x12"cardstock in addition to separate outer covers. The album was filled with inspirational quotes for teachers.

Teacher Pamper Packs:

Contents of the 'pamper packs' I made for 3 teachers. They consisted of: a coffee mug with spoon; cappuccino sachets; chocolate truffles; Radox shower gel and roll-on anti-perspirant; nail file; massage sponge; chocolate facial mud mask; hand wipes; face wipes; vaseline; nivea moisturising cream and again, each basket contained a maze album full of teacher quotes - more or less same quotes but different designs of albums.

Pamper packs all wrapped up:

2 out of 4 of the thank you notelet designs. Materials/tools used: Stamping Up stamp and scallop punch, Bazzill cardstock and Top Line Creations ribbon + basic cardstock:
A couple more thank you notelets + gift tags:

4 out of the 5 designs of the maze albums:

A couple of sample pages of the maze albums:

Baby Jayden

Congratulations to Tracy, Steven and Kelsey!

Alwynne's chum's mum recently had a wee baby boy whom they named Jayden. It's great to see an influx of baby boys being born as for a while it was lots of little girlies! As I only know Tracy and Steven to talk to in the school playground or in the 'passing', and I know Kelsey [Alwynne's chum], I thought I would make up a little 'minding' for the baby's arrival.

Firstly, I made up a Sizzix die cut baby album using various accents and embellishments. And also using the Stamping Up stamp and the Stamping Up Spiral punch for the insert with poem in the mini album plus fibres and ribbon on the book-ring hinges. I had bought a couple of white wicker baskets at the end of April when I saw them I thought they would come in handy! They already had their own cotton lining and all I added was the blue ribbon and used the Stamping Up retired "Sweet One" stamp with embossing powder and the heat gun and used the SU scallop punch to punch that out. I did a couple of the punchouts so that the basket, card and mini album all corresponded. The basket I filled with about 8 newborn baby nappies, baby shampoo, baby bath, a ramer sponge, travel pack of baby wipes, anti-bac hand gel and a bar of baby soap along with a mini Winnie the Pooh! I then cellophane wrapped the mini album and added the personalised label. I punched a hole in this label so that I could feed the curling ribbon through it so that it joined with the ribbon bow I made for the finished cellophane wrapped basket.

Happy Mothering Sunday 2008!

Well, today in the UK it's Mother's Day - so "Happy Mother's Day" to all you mums out there!

This year Alwynne and I went shopping yesterday for little bits and pieces for her Granny's pampering kit for Mother's Day. It's got the usual "Dove" beauty products, anti-bac hand gel, a pack of anti-bac hand wipes, factor 15 lip balm, a mini box of "Celebrations" chocolates, a handbag size bottle of perfume and finally a Dean Martin CD!

Yeah I got a "fix" today! [crafting that is!]

Yesterday, Alwynne had been sent home from school complaining of a sore tummy. So this morning the poor wee mite was again complaining of a sore tummy as did her brother! I would see the point if I had been trying some fancy new recipes on them but I haven’t – honestly! It’s something that is doing the rounds at school for the last couple of months unfortunately.

So, having the kids at home scuppered my plans for the day of what was meant for me to be out in town sourcing items for a commission I have to prepare by the end of the week. It turns out I did manage to get a very small crafting 'fix' today, nevertheless it was still a fix. At the weekend I managed to purchase a few travel and regular sized 'Dove' products and a handbag size bottle of lovely Ted Baker 'W' perfume along with other self pampering items to add to a gift basket I have been planning to prepare. I arranged them in the basket along with tissue paper to ‘prop’ up some of the smaller items. As a finishing touch, I made a little ribbon flower to insert inside the basket in amongst the pamper products and then wrapped them up with the cellophane and another hand made ribbon bow – I am quite chuffed with the finished item.

40th Birthday "Survival Kit"

This is what I did for Fiona Veerman or affectionately known as 'Fee Vee' for her 40th birthday bash [yeah, I know, difficult to believe Fee is that age eh?]. There's all sorts in there inlcuding rubber bands, paper clips, headache tablets, chocolate, lollipops, pasta and alcoholic shots etc!

I was especially chuffed with my florist's bow! It was one thing that I had wanted to learn how to do and looked on the 'net for a lesson. Anyways, I did follow the instructions and had an okay result but nothing compared to this solo attempt! Previously, it was at crafting sessions at the primary school, on behalf of Suz, I was introduced to Kirsteen [yeah you both know who you are babes! :o) ] who is a florist herself. Weeelllll, I received first hand tuition which I thoroughly enjoyed and this was my first solo attempt!

Baby Elsie

Way back in September 2007, we were delighted to hear our friend's daughter had given birth to a wee girl. The new parents are young [well half my current age!!] so when they announced that they had called their wee babe Elsie, we were somewhat surprised to say the least as it is quite an old fashioned name. I have to say when I initially heard the name Elsie, I immediately thought of [in a nice way] Elsie Inglis, a historical nurse. My mind started to work overtime with what we could give them gift-wise so this baby kit is what I came up with. It consisted of: scratch mitts; popper vests; sudocream; calpol sachets; ramer sponge; baby shampoo; baby soap; baby bath; moisturiser etc. I also made up a little mini scrapbook album from Sizzix so that they could insert some photos to show off to people.