Christmas crafting

Ok....A little late, but may be inspiring for someone next year

So my wonderful friends got spoilt this year.  This is thanks to Paul's team assistant at work.  She went above and beyond when it came to us flying back to England this year, and I wanted to give her a christmas gift to say thanks.  I came up with a hamper idea, thanks to Pinterest.  I thought, seeing as I was making one, I may as well make more!

So in these hampers were: a tupperware full of chocolate fudge.  This was soooooooo yummy.  There was some Candy Cane vodka.  I ended up making this with Starburst Candy canes, so there were 2 different flavors.  I have been told this is yummy.  We have a spare one sitting in the cupboard.  It may get opened on the 1st February.  It took more candy canes than I expected, 6-10 per mason jar.  And it took a great deal of filtering....  There was some gingerbread sugar scrub. I made a couple of batches of this, just to be sure I got the right consistency.  I have used these in the shower.  My word, your skin is so soft afterwards! Think it is the coconut oil.  Then there is the named picture frames.  I took inspiration from this, but changed it slightly.  Very easy, did not cost a lot, but means something to everyone.  I know Paul's colleague has hers at her desk, and I have seen my friends out on display at their houses.

I then wrapped them in cellophane, which took me to Jo-Ann fabric and craft store.  This is now my new favorite store (more on that to come).  For my friends with children, I added in some bags of sweeties, the one below is for a friend with a small baby, so she got a teething toy rather than some sweets. 

The 'tags' were another experiment.  Melted peppermint candies, check out the post here on how to do it.  I experimented with red and green candies.  I made many different batches of these.  I found some to be quite brittle, and break easily.  You have to make sure you put the whole for the string in quite soon after they come out of the oven, before they harden...  I coated mine with mode lodge, so had to make sure I wrote on the back for people not to eat!

The baskets and the tinsel came from Dollar Tree, dead easy, and cheap too!

Back to the fudge.  I ended up making about 5 batches of this during december.  It was just so yummy, and a real quick and easy present for people.  The boys made their cinnamon ornaments again and painted them.  I covered them in modge podge, they wrote a message on the back, and we distributed them to teachers on the last day of term. It makes such an easy gift, plus the teachers have a decoration for their tree to remember the boys.....

.....like anyone could forget them!