holiday wrapping

Now that we're full swing into the holiday season I've been busy wrapping up the gifts as we purchase them or as they arrive from the man in the big brown truck. I like to wrap them as we get them so we can enjoy looking at them under the tree for awhile before they are all ripped to shreds in a matter of seconds.

Normally, I'm out searching for the prettiest gift wrap I can find, and usually I prefer Hallmark or Papyrus, and the reason for Hallmark is that I like the fact that they print lines on the inside of the roll for straight cutting... (which I hope they always continue to do...) then I'm off to the craft store buying oodles of ribbon. This year I thought I'd be a little more crafty and turns out I'm saving a lot of money too. So, I had this roll of kraft brown paper laying around that was never even opened and I decided that I would start wrapping the gifts in this roll. All of the gifts will be wrapped in recycled paper this year, and even if I have to buy some bags for odd shaped gifts that cannot be boxed I'll still go with the kraft bags for a nice cohesive look under our Christmas tree. I went thru my ribbon box and I already had several different styles of red ribbon so I that was it, and I decided to go with some kind of red ribbon, string or twine. I did go to the craft store and purchase several more styles of ribbon, and as luck would have it all of them were on sale too. While I was standing in line, I got sucked into some fuzzy red and green pom-poms and red buttons from the $1 bin that will later be hot-glued onto some packages. But, hey... they were from the dollar bin and I think they make the packages look fantastic. I am in love with bakers twine so I had to use some of that as well. Then while perusing the aisles, I got a bag of red jingle bells and some random picks for wreaths that I thought would look nice on a package. I also used some stamps and silver metallic ink that I had from home. Then the other day while shopping at Whole Foods, I saw this big display of big, gourmet flavored candy canes (pomegranate, nutmeg and pear and many more but those were the ones that I chose) by Hammond Candies, and there was a gal loading up her basket full of them and she remarked how wonderful they were so of course I plopped a handful of them in my basket too. I got lucky and they were also on sale for $1.99 each, and these are not thin, wimpy looking candy canes these are thick and rather dapper looking canes. I hope the gal was right and they are quite tasty. Before I get off of the subject of Whole Foods, I also purchased a tin full of teeny-tiny bite-sized cinnamon rolls.... 20 seconds in the microwave with a cup of tea and they are absolutely to die for. Which leads me to my next comment, why oh why can't there be a Whole Foods by where I live??? Anyway... enough of that but it really does irk the foodie in me that we do not have any great food markets that are not without a long-trek in the car someplace that usually involves snacks and possibly a coffee. Yes, that's how far I must travel for good eats. Okay.... never mind, enough rambling.

While I was trying to take some photos of the packages for the blog, our dog had to get in on the action of course. I think she thinks whenever I get out the camera.... it's all about her. But, she is so cute, so I couldn't resist!