I shared my latest Star Wars themed Ice Cream Social with you last week, and today I am sharing an idea for a gift sized ice cream sundae bar. My basket full of ice cream toppings makes the perfect hostess gift or is a fun idea for the next time you are asked to bring dessert for a small gathering.
Last week we had the joy of meeting our brand new nephew for the very first time. We made a trip to the hospital the day he was born for some first snuggles and to introduce the kids to their baby cousin. It was a quick visit, and now that mom and baby have had time to settle in at home, I decided to offer to bring the family dinner and their baby gift.
For dinner, I had planned to bring stuffed baked potatoes and steaks to grill, but it ended up being rainy so I opted to bake ham and scalloped potatoes. My sister in law also mentioned they had a bit of a rough first week so I decided to cook up a few other items to leave with them. I ended up making a big container of cut fruit, some no-bake chocolate granola bars, ham and cheddar cheese muffins, a batch of tomato basil soup and a tray of stuffed pasta shells. A good friend of mine stocked my fridge when I was in the hospital having my son and it was one of the best gifts I received. It was nice to -e able to pay that forward to another new mom.
Best Ever Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Bars from Money Saving Mom
Creamy Tomato Basil Soup from Joyful Healthy Eats
Cheddar Bacon Muffins from Clockwork Lemon (I substituted ham for the bacon)
Chicken-Spinach Stuffed Shells on Just a Pinch Recipes
For the baby gift, I will admit that I totally left it to last minute and it was only half finished when the little guy arrived. I was struggling to come up with the perfect gift for the first time parents and wanted something both cute and useful. There were a lot of small things on their registry they still could use so I decided to go with a bunch of smaller items and assemble them together in a diaper cake.
This was my first attempt at a diaper cake and I was surprised by just how easy it came together. I already had various sized cake pans available, so I used the spiral diaper cake method shown on Fun Baby Shower ideas and more.
It was hard not to completely spoil baby (I miss buying little stuff!) and I may have gone a little overboard with the accessories once I decided on my theme. I had already bought the Finding Nemo outfit from Costco and when my sister in law mentioned they could use more towels and washcloths for baby I was delighted to find the Nemo themed ones on their Babies R Us registry.
I was able to incorporate the hooded towel into the bottom layer of the cake and folded a couple of the washcloths up like seashells on either side of the middle layer of the cake. I also tucked some travel sized lotion and shampoo into the towel because I know they came in handy when my kids were little.
The clear bubble shaped bath toys made cute accessories on the cake hidden amongst orange and green curled ribbons. I found the ribbons at the Dollar Store and knew immediately they would make the perfect seaweed/anemone’s on my sea themed cake.
At the bottom of the cake, a not-so-scary shark peeks out from the front of a rolled up sleeper. When it comes to babies, you can never have too many sleepers.
For the cake topper, I chose another of their registry items – the Plan B Tranquil Turtle. Well, technically, they had registered for the Twilight Turtle, but the sea turtle themed Tranquil Turtle just fit so perfectly with my Nemo theme! My kids have the Twilight Ladybug and Turtle and they have gotten a lot of play. It is by no means a necessary baby item, but I do know it will be enjoyed by baby Colton for years to come.
Other fun items I also included on the cake for baby were a Nemo rattle and a talking Nemo and Friends book.
And I lucked out at Dollarama when I came across these great clownfish, shark and crab themed socks. They are expandable socks that I have purchased with both my kids and really loved. They fit for a long time and are nice and snug to stay on those little feet!
I had a ton of fun making the diaper cake and it turned out even cuter then I could have imagined. My brother in law and his wife share my love of Disney/Pixar so I knew they would like the theme. None of the items in my gift were particularly special or unique, but I think it all came together for a pretty impressive gift. My 5 year old was beyond excited to bring the final cake to his new cousin.
We are through the baby stage, so I am so glad to have this new little guy in the family. My kids seem pretty enamoured with their new little cousin and I am so excited to watch him grow. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law have been a fantastic Aunt and Uncle to our kids, so I have no doubts that they are going to be absolutely amazing parents!
I know it is past Christmas at this point, but I still wanted to share the cute Christmas themed gift baskets I came up with as gifts for my sister and her husband and for my husband’s brother and his wife. They are always wonderful about getting birthday and Christmas gifts for our children, so I wanted to make sure we had a little something for them to enjoy at Christmas.
My idea originated with these cute Christmas themed lidded mason jar drinking mugs I found at Dollarama. I decided to add on the round shaped bottles of Coca-Cola you can find around Christmas time and then selected a couple small bottles of their favorite alcohol to enjoy with it – whiskey for the men and Bailey’s Irish cream for the ladies!
From there, I decided to add a few treats and snacks to enjoy with their holiday drinks. I looked up popular Christmas song lyrics that made mention of food and used these to select and label my basket contents. Inside I included “Some Corn for Popping”, gingerbread flavored Marchmallow Peeps labelled “It’s A Marshmallow World in the Winter” and a few adorable Kinder Happy Hippo’s that read “I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas”.
I was also excited to find cans of nuts and snacks I found at our grocery store with fun Christmas themed labels such as the chocolate macaroon “Reindeer Droppings” show in the basket below.
The labels looked great printed and attached to the different items in the basket. I just wish I would have made an additional one that read “Making SPIRITS Bright” for the bottles of alcohol.
To finish the baskets off, I arranged everything neatly in plastic Dollar Store baskets, wrapped them up in cellophane and added my large “A Basket of Christmas Cheer” label.
Do you like this idea? It is never too early to start planning for next Christmas! This would be a great contribution to a gift exchange or for the hard to buy for.
My little guy is in preschool this year so we have entered the world of teacher gifts.
It seems like gift giving has become a lot more complicated nowadays. People seem to have a lot more dietary restrictions and allergies which makes it hard to give food gifts. Mugs and ornaments make for a nice teacher gift, but you know they already have an overabundance of those items and I hate to add clutter to their lives just for the sake of giving a gift. Pinterest has some great ideas, but it can get confusing with all the lists of what and what NOT to gift. It is hard not to second guess your purchases on the quest for the perfect gift or to just give up by this stage in the Christmas shopping game and resort to boxed chocolates.
Either way, I did want to give Camden’s teachers a small Christmas gift and I didn’t want it to be boxed chocolates. I know his main teacher does not drink tea or coffee of any sort so the standard coffee shop gift card was out and I really didn’t want to give a food item of any sort. So, I came across these soft infinity scarves and decided to go with a neutral color for each of the teachers.
Wrapped up with a cute personalized tag that reads “I’m so lucky to get to HANG AROUND with you!”, I hope they will like them. I have been wearing a lot of scarves lately and really love the ease of the infinity scarf. The teachers spend time out in the cold with the kids so hopefully they can use them then.
And, after reading one of those dreaded lists that suggested teachers like receiving books as a gift, I also decided to add on a storybook version of The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck. I know each teacher has their own children so hopefully the book can be enjoyed at home or in the classroom. It is a great Christmas story with a sweet message and lucky for me I was able to grab them for just $3 each at the Dollar Store!
I packaged my items up in a cute Santa box for the main teacher and an Elf themed box for the assistant teacher. I am hoping the gifts are well received and I haven’t broken any of the rules of what not to gift to teachers.
While baking up a large batch of cookies last night, I was reminded of the cookie trays I made up for all my co-workers shortly after my son was born.
Camden came 2 weeks early and I ended up missing my last week of work and the baby shower that was planned for me. I ended up going in a couple days after his birth to clean up a few items, and I was given a beautiful gift basket and a Babies’R’Us gift card that helped buy us some of the larger baby items we needed.
Since my co-workers were so incredibly generous with my baby gift I wanted to find a nice way to try and thank everyone that contributed. I never got to say a proper goodbye to most of them and I felt a bit guilty that they also had to miss out on yummy baby shower treats. When thinking of what I could do for a thank you, I remembered that we sometimes got boxes of Cookies by George to the office at Christmas and they were always very well received. Unfortunately I had just gone on maternity leave and ordering cookies wasn’t something in the budget, so I decided to DIY and bake up my own variety of cookies.
Cookie flavors I included were:
I worked for a large company, with staff among four different office buildings, so I ended up making a tray to drop off to each of the lunch rooms. The cookie baking was time consuming, but I stuck with basic recipes and it went faster then I expected. It also helped that I had an easy newborn that liked to nap!
The large plastic trays came from the Dollar Store and I simply lined them with a bit of parchment paper before neatly stacking the cookies on them. For the cost of the trays and a few baking supplies, I think my thank you gifts turned out great. I will admit the cookies weren’t quite as good as Cookies By George, but they were all still pretty tasty. And on my visit I am not sure what my co-workers were more excited to see – me, the new baby, or the giant platters of fresh baked cookies!
It’s no secret that I like to shop at the Dollar Store, especially around this time of year when I am looking for inexpensive and easy Christmas gifts. The Dollar Store is my go-to for most of the kids stocking stuffers, gift basket fillers, and when I am looking for a little something extra to finish off a gift.
When I came across this Snowman Accessories Kit in the Christmas section at Dollarama, I knew immediately that it would make the perfect friend or neighbour gift. I had bought a similar kit for $10 last year, so I was excited to see these were only $2 each.
I’ve been subjected to a lot of Frozen watching lately, so the first thought that came to my head when I saw the kit was “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?”. I decided to repackage the kits and personalize with my own topper featuring everyone’s favorite talking snowman.
To tie in my Olaf concept, I dressed my graphic of him up in some of the included accessories from the kit. Once happy with the design, I simply sent the toppers to print at Staples, then cut them out and stapled them on. I even decided to keep the kits in the clear plastic bags the kits were already in and just switched out the cardboard topper.
With the Dollar Store packaging removed, I am excited to give them out as gifts and am willing to bet most people would never even guess how little my finished kits cost. They are great little gift to make and have on hand for the Christmas season, and I love that it makes for a fun family activity that will work for a wide range of ages.
These would also make great favors if you are having a Frozen themed or Christmas party. If you are looking to DIY there are some great tutorials on Pinterest to show how to make your own snowman building kit, but I don’t think I would be able to make them for less then the $2 I paid per kit.
FREE PRINTABLE: To make your own toppers, simply click the artwork below to save and send to print. I have sized the artwork to 7.75″ wide to fit perfectly over the Dollarama kits.
It amazes me how quickly stores make the switch from Halloween into full Christmas mode. It is hard not to feel a slight bit of panic November 1st when the Christmas decorations fill the shelves, holiday music fills the air, and you realize Christmas is just around the corner. I hate the crowds, but I love shopping this time of year and seeing all the Christmas themed clothing, toys, decorations, housewares and books.
This year I am hoping to start a new tradition with the kids. One of the ideas I have seen floating around the internet is to wrap a stack of books for them to open in the night’s leading up to Christmas. Books are already part of our bedtime routine so I thought this would be a great way to bring a bit more Christmas magic and excitement into our house. I have seen it done as a 30 day advent calendar, but I think I will shorten it and have enough books wrapped to read for the 12 days before Christmas.
We already have a few Christmas books that I will wrap, but I stopped at Cole’s bookstore yesterday to quickly browse and see if there was anything new that caught my eye. I was immediately drawn to a stack of books titled Santa is Coming to Ottawa by Steve Smallman. I picked it up, disappointed it wasn’t Santa is Coming to Edmonton and then was delighted to discover that exact title hidden beneath the Ottawa edition. As I flipped through the pages and saw the references to neighbourhoods and landmarks in our city, I knew it was a perfect Christmas book to add to our growing collection.
The illustrations in this book are beautiful and I love that they show the familiar landmarks like the High Level Bridge, Art Gallery, Muttart Conservatory and Rexall Place. I am not sure my kids will be quite old enough to recognize and pick them out this year, but I see them getting excited over it in the upcoming years. My three year old has just started asking about where we live and trying to figure the world around us, so I really love the relevancy of this book.
This book is just one of many in the series. Other major Canadian cities that Santa is Coming to include Calgary, Vancouver, Hull, Ottawa, Toronto or just Canada. For my American friends, there is a wide variety of titles that cover states and major cities from across the country. And, because he is a British author, there is a vast range of English and European titles such as London, Belfast, and Scotland.
And if these still don’t work for you? There is simply Santa is Coming to My House.
Visit the Chapters/Indigo/Coles website to find all the Santa is Coming to titles.
I wanted to bring something special for the kids at playgroup this week and found this cute DIY Pumpkin Patch from one of my favorite party blogs Hostess with the Mostess. After gathering up some orange balloons, green ribbon and small treats, I set to work following the great tutorial on Hostess with the Mostess.
To help get the treats in the balloons, I cut off a chocolate milk bottle and put each balloon on the end. Suckers may not have been the best treat choice because I did end up with a few deflated balloons, but luckily I still had enough pumpkins for all the kids. Other treats I included inside were chocolate foil pumpkins, a piece of candy corn saltwater toffee, a small glowstick and Halloween stickers.
Once filled and inflated, the toughest job was drawing on all the faces in permanent marker. To finish off my pumpkins I used some ribbon and tied on a leaf shaped tag that read “From Camden and Keira”.
We also had to bring a treat to playgroup that day so I made this delicious Pumpkin Fluff Dip I found on the Kraft Canada website. I served it with some sliced apples, cinnamon sugar pita’s and ginger snaps. I am not sure too many of the kids ate it, but us mommy’s sure liked it!
Over the past year, I have been lucky to meet some very lovely ladies and their adorable children through our playgroup. I had been in other mommy groups and classes and haven’t really clicked with anyone so I am thankful to have found these ladies and get to spend time with them on a weekly basis. Our friendship has grown outside of the regularly scheduled playgroup now and I am so excited that we have now started to be invited to some of the kids birthday parties.
The first party we have been invited to was a Dora themed party so I wanted to find the perfect gift. There is a lot of cheap Dora themed stuff out there so I ended up settling on a cute Disney princess dress and tea party set. I decided I could make it Dora themed through the wrapping, so I bought a roll of purple wrapping paper and set to work!
Part 1 – “Backpack” wrapping
This idea came from purple paper bag backpack themed treat bags I have seen on the internet. The gift I bought was a nice rectangular shape so I decided to wrap it and make it look like backpack. I simply started by wrapping the gift as normal with purple paper. The pockets, top flap and back straps were just folded out of the same gift wrap and taped on. The finishing touch was Backpack’s face which I found on the internet and printed on my home computer. It was cut out and attached with double sided tape.
The pockets on the backpack were stuffed with Dora fruit snacks and a Dora themed activity book I found from the dollar store. When I showed the final backpack to my 3 year old, his first questions was “where’s Map?” With all the other stuff I had for the pockets I didn’t even think to add him, but I am so glad my 3 year old suggested it! To make Map, all I did was print the same face I used for backpack and rolled up the sheet of paper.
Part 2 – Helium Balloon Star
If you have been “lucky” enough to have seen an episode of Dora, you have probably seen the happy faced stars floating around. When looking for Dora gift ideas on the internet I came across pictures of these stars and they reminded me of the star shaped helium balloons I have seen at Dollar Tree. I know how much my 3 year old loves helium balloons so I thought this would be a nice little addition to the gift. Unfortunately my Dollar Tree was out of the big star shaped balloons so my idea to have stars floating above backpack had to be modified to be a small star shaped balloon coming out of Backpack’s pocket.
The balloons are cute on their own, but I figured they could use an extra Dora touch by adding faces to them. To do this, I simply painted eyes on in whiteout and used a sharpie to draw in the mouth and eyeballs. And then I found cute “Happy Birthday” helium balloon with Dora on it at Dollarama so I was still able to have a balloon floating above backpack!
I love the way it turned out and was so excited to give it to the birthday girl. She didn’t even notice the gift inside wasn’t Dora related, and her mom tells me she was asking for a princess dress anyway, so it ended up being a perfect gift all around.
Now my problem will be to come up with something equally awesome for the next party! I think I may have set the expectations a little high.
I have been to very few Bridal showers, but I was lucky enough to be able to attend two this summer. I love attending, but always find it a struggle to come up with the perfect gift! I could easily buy off a registry, but I prefer to give something a little more personal and unique.
I posted about the personal candy buffet I did for my sister in law, and because it went over so well at her shower I decided to attempt another for my co-worker’s shower. We shared an office and she often had candy tucked away in her desk so I knew it would definitely be something she would enjoy.
Because she was getting married in Hawaii, the obvious choice was to do a tropical theme. I was able to find all kinds of Luau decorations at the dollar store including small palm trees, a coconut cup and dancing hula girl which I arranged on a platter with various glass containers also found at the dollar store.
Personal touches I added were the “Sweet Love” banner across the top and candy labels I designed and printed at home. The lollipops also got the Hawaiian treatment by inserting them through silk flowers from a lei that I cut apart.
The candy I selected also tried to keep with the tropical theme and included tropical skittles, gummy sharks, tropical jellies, pixie stiks, peanut butter M&M’s and tropical Mike & Ikes.
It turned out very cute and the bride told me it was the best gift she received. I am not sure whether this was just something she told all her guests, but I’ll take it!
dolledupdesign.net 