Beginnings of the gift making

Halloween hasn't even happened and I have already decided that I needed to start on my holiday gifts so this is just the first of many, you know, unless I procrastinate after this one and decide to buy a bunch of stuff instead. It has been known to happen many times. I also figured that I needed to get this big little one out of the way quickly incase it gets waylaid on its journey halfway around the world to my friend in New Zealand.

I called this my big little gift because it is small in size (under 3" tall and 4.5" wide), but took quite a bit of time and has lots of other components to it that I still need to work on. My friend loves advent calendars for Christmas and tries to get a new unique one every year and so who am I to not add on to her collection? I looked at quite a few different ones online, but some of the items I wanted to make sure as anything would not fit in the little pockets so they would have to be wrapped separately and numbered. Well, they sure as heck won't fit in this one either, but it was too cute not to attempt to make. Instead of numbering the wrapping paper of the gifts I'm going to wrap them all in different papers and tuck a little piece in the day it should be opened along with a little candy or something.

Some of the smaller things that I have ready to wrap include some cute Christmas tree silicone baking containers, holiday themed cupcake wrappers and toppers, a couple of DVDS, a couple of candles and a few other things that I know I'm forgetting.

Before the bow it was missing something, I still might change the bow if I can find ribbon I like better. At the moment the bow doesn't look right.

I made the entire thing out of little match box like boxes. The boxes are the same height and width of the 32 count match box boxes, but about 3/4" longer. The paper and brads were from Oriental Trading Company as were the ribbons; the buttons and embroidery thread came from my stash. I would like to add something to the sides to jazz it up a little, but they are really odd shapes and none of my stamps would fit. I'm thinking about running to the store and looking for some fake holly and replacing the berries with some red beads I have. Eh, I think I'm done with if for now while I work on the gifts that go with it.








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