Gift Baskets

Hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day! :)  I didn't get a chance to talk to my Dad, as he wasn't home when I called, but we were able to have dinner and spend the evening with Kyle's parents, which was nice.
I had a hard time coming up with a gift for Kyle this year. Last June I made a personalized book for him using snapfish. It was 'written' by Parker and every page included a picture of him and Kyle as well as a one-sentence description of why Parker loves his Daddy. It turned out pretty cute and Kyle loved it. I had wanted to do something similar this year, but a lot of the pictures I wanted to use were taken on Kyle's phone and I wasn't able to get to them. So I was kind of at a loss as to what to get...  Then I remembered that the NHL draft is coming up, which is a big deal in our house! Since he married a Canadian, Kyle's become a loyal (and frustrated) follower of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He watches a lot of hockey and he's already been talking about the draft, which is this Friday. So I thought I'd make a "Countdown-to-the-NHL-Draft Survival Kit."   :)

What does one need when counting down to an NHL draft? I have no idea! But here's what I ended up getting:

-Maple Leafs t-shirt (I figured this was a necessity, right?)
-DVD of hockey bloopers/funny moments
-Small lego kit (to pass some of the time while waiting!)
-Puzzle book
-Sunflower seeds
-Reeces Pieces
-Mini snickers
-Hockey cards
-Beef jerky

The next thing was to find some kind of container to put everything in. As Kyle is not really a fan of cute little baskets,   :)  I was hoping we had a plain gift bag that would work. Unfortunately, the only ones I had left in the closet were baby-themed. Hmmm...not the best option for a guy.

Luckily I got a package in the mail last week and the little square box was the perfect size. It would need a little work but that would be simple enough.



Maybe.

I taped down the flaps and covered the whole box in wrapping paper. I don't know how to wrap an open box properly so I was excited to see that it was starting out well--the sides were nice and smooth. However, it was a different story once I got to the last side. I wasn't sure what to do with all the left over paper so I just tucked it inside and taped it down.  :-) A little bit of lumpiness is okay, right??  I cut out a square of the wrapping paper and taped it onto the bottom to make it look a little more finished.

Finally I filled the box. I put some crumpled tissue paper in the bottom and then set the gifts inside, trying to stand them up so he could see everything. There was just enough stuff to fill the box.

The final touch was adding a card. I thought it would be cute to have Parker make the card, so i took one of his recent 'drawings' and wrote on it. Handmade cards from your kids are the best!  :)

***

The first gift basket I made was a couple months ago. A girl in our youth group had to get all of her wisdom teeth pulled (poor girl!!). We wanted to get her a gift that was practical but still fun so Kyle suggested we make a basket of some of her favorite things. She wasn't able to eat much, obviously, but her Mom told us she liked a certain kind of juice. So I started by picking up a few bottles of that, and I added a few more things:

-Juice
-Apple sauce
-Pudding
-Chapstick
-Cookie Monster gel pack
-Mini puzzle
-Crossword/Sudoku book
-A pair of cute socks
-Get well card

I decided that I like making gift baskets!  It's such a fun way to personalize what you give--you can make it suit any type of person or occasion. I don't always know what to put in it, but that's half the fun--shopping for all the random little goodies that will go inside.  :)







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