Journal My Christmas ~ December 14th

Gifts~

I am a huge believer in hand made gifts. I think things you make are so much more special because of the time involved.

This year money and time are big issues but I had some commitments and I wanted to follow through. Today I recieved the charms from the charm swap that I participated in. I love my Creative Escape friends because they always do fun things.
Here are the charms in the packages they came in and then the charms on my necklace that I will wear throughout the month.

Great job ladies, I love them.



Here is the process of making gifts. I love my Zutter Bind It All and so I decided to do their 12 Days challenge and made the gifts I needed for 2 swaps. One was a secret santa swap with my CE friends and the other was to do a stocking stuffer swap with my friends during a weekend long crop. Unfortunately both failed to happen. Being that things are a bit bumpy right now, the 2 bright spots in my month not happening left me a bit sad.
Through an honest mistake the hostess from the Secret Santa program ilthought I had withdrawn and let the person who was giving to me that I had dropped and she reassigned her partner :( Being that money was tight, I sold stuff on Ebay to make the money to buy goodies. I had so much fun and was ready to ship off my package when I was told what happened. I hold no ill-will toward the hostess, I have been so sad because it was a bright spot in my month and now it was gone. I am still going to send my assigned partner the goodies I made because they were personalized.
My friends Treion, Saren, Colleen, Bev and I were set for a weekend long crop where we were going to do a stocking swap and also make stocking stuffers for each other. Well the crop was cancelled and rescheduled for next month. It made me sad cause again it was a bright spot to look forward to and it didn't happen.
We are getting together to crop on Sunday - I need it and we will do our swap.




Back to gifts, I love to create and I hope my friends will love their goodies. Gift giving is one of my favorite things. I like to see others happy, that is what is important to me.

Tonight at dinner with my mom, brother and sister in law, we discussed the fact that we are all struggling financially and we are going to treat each other to dinner and that would be our respective gift.
We always enjoy being out with each other so this will be perfect for all involved. I have truly seen though especially this time of year, that there is more then just presents to make others happy.
I will bake and make caramel corn. That will bless many others. This season the emphasis will be on doing for each other as opposed to buying for each other. I am really looking forward to it and know that either way God will bless us all.







This awesome package arrived today. Veronica M sent this to me so that I could still participate in the Secret Santa swap. Now I have a fun gift coming her way. Thanks Veronica you made my day