Introducing 'Loui... with love' - Personalised Gifts & Embroidery

I am super excited to share with you that my amazing sister, Loui, has opened her Facebook store, Loui with love, specialising in personalised gifts and embroidery!  Her products are such an amazing quality, and so adorable, they just make the perfect gift :)

To celebrate Loui with love's grand opening, I thought I would do a little post about the fabulous products that she has available.  I tried to take some great photos to share with you, but with my 2 year old niece as my assistant photographer, I had to be super-quick with my snapping ;)  The photos don't do the products justice, but hopefully you get the idea...

Baby Singlets - these are just some of the applique designs available

Chocolate Easter Nests Gifts

Last Easter I decided to make presents for everyone, rather than buy Easter Eggs.  I chose to make these little Easter nests.  These are all over Pinterest and the internet, probably because they are really simple to make, and quite cost effective too.

 

A Little Birthday Card Postage Bucket

Yesterday and today, I have spent some time preparing all of my March, April and half-way through May birthday cards for posting.  I admit that I missed two of my lovely girlfriends' birthdays at the start of March (sorry girls!!), so I needed to backtrack a bit and catch up on those, plus I wanted to do the next month in advance, as I know I won't have time to even think about writing birthday cards to send when the baby arrives!!  The end result - this cute little bucket of ready-to-post birthday cards!

My Baby Shower - Thank You Gifts (Part 4)

As a little special parting gift, the girls arranged these gorgeous little favours for everyone to take home from the shower...

They were beautifully displayed in this bird cage!

Handmade Gift - Mini Ribbon Paperclips

Last year for my handmade Christmas gift, I decided to make these gorgeous little mini ribbon paperclips.  I thought they looked so cute, and by following this tutorial I found online, I was able to create these little masterpieces!  The only thing that I did differently to the instructions listed, was to hot glue the back of the bow, so that it sat straight on top of the paper clip (otherwise, they tended to spin around).

I mounted the paperclips on a piece of card, with a ribbon wrapped around the middle, just to provide a bit of an added embellishment.

The pink were definitely my favourite...

Balloon Pocket - A Fun Addition to a Birthday Card in the Mail

I love to send good old-fashioned mail.  Especially birthday cards!  Today I thought that I would share with you a little something that I added in with the birthday cards that I posted last year.

Organising Cards & Presents for the Year Ahead - 2013

Yesterday I reviewed my presents list for the new year.  I keep a Spreadsheet detailing all of the presents for the year, and this is how I allocate a fortnightly allocation out of our pay that gets automatically transferred into my Presents Account.  The past two Christmas' I have come out with money left in the account (yay!), so this indicates to me that this system works, needless to say that we will be continuing with this system again in 2013.

Two Cute Little Christmas Presents

Pinterest is such a great place to get ideas for presents.  I find it shows ways to turn a gift into something that is thoughtful and much more meaningful.  I am sure that lots of you have already seen either one or both of these little gift ideas, like those floating around on Pinterest, but I just had to share them, as I received both of them from a very special friend this Christmas, and I knew you would love them both!

'Merry Kissmas' Lip Gloss

My Christmas Gift Wrapping 2012 (Red and Gold)

I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas with their loved ones.  I am so blessed to have such an amazing family to share such a special time of year with.

I thought I would share today my gift wrapping from this year.  I obviously chose red and gold to match my 2012 Christmas theme, which I shared earlier this week here.  I always try to keep the wrapping simple, as I always have lots of presents to wrap!  And like last year (you can see that wrapping here), I kept the embellishments flat - so much easier for stacking under the tree and it also means it doesn't get squashed during transporting the gifts...

Christmas Baking Treat - Star Cinnamon Cookies

I decided to bake cookies as a Christmas treat for my staff at work.  I found these adorable square pink baking cups at a variety store, and made a simple little label to stick onto the front, which I cut out with my scalloped punch.

Christmas Wrapping Paper - 2012

I took the plunge today and bought my Christmas wrapping paper for this year!  It is such a big decision - well for me it is anyway!  I like to have all matching paper, and since I am not that great coordinating patterns, I like to stick with one style of paper for all of our Christmas presents.

The last 5 or so years, our Christmas colours have been Brown and Gold.  You can see where I have posted about this here and here.  This year I decided to shake things up a bit, and I am adding Red to the mix.  At the after-Christmas sales last year I bought up big - lots of red baubles and tinsel, which cost next to nothing!  I am ready for my new-look Christmas in 2012!

So, when it came to the wrapping paper, I knew I wanted red, to help to bring out the new colour I am adding to my colour theme - as I won't have half as many red decorations as I do brown and gold.  This is my cheap and easy way of making our tree burst with the new colour!

Here it is....

Snowman Soup - Christmas Gift Idea

Last year I had a great time making 'Snowman Soup' for lots of colleagues, friends and family!  I first found this idea here on the Organised Christmas website (also where I found all of the printables for my Christmas planner). 

It was really easy to source the bits and pieces I needed to put together my twist on this cute Christmas novelty gift idea.... A little bag of all of the ingredients for hot chocolate, along with this cute little poem to make Snowman Soup:

I heard that you've been good this year,

You've done everything just right.

So here is some Snowman Soup

For you to enjoy one Christmas night.

First, pour the packet into a mug,

Then add water - boiling hot.

Next stir with the peppermint stick,

Then, one last thing that I almost forgot!

That's right, you must add the secret ingredient

To make the perfect Snowman Soup,

It's super-sweet and oh-so tasty...

Drop in the Snowman Poop!

All you need is hot chocolate sachets, candy canes, marshmallows and snap lock bags.

Rubber Ducky with Cupcake Washers Gift Idea

Following on from my Cupcake Facewasher post last week, today I thought I would share this cute little present for a baby, which has the handmade touch, but takes very little time to put together.

                                 

Cupcake Facewashers Gift Idea

I made these lovely little cupcakes as thank-you gifts for my sister's baby shower last year.

Homemade Father's Day Card

On the weekend, I shared some happy snaps from our Father's Day last year.  I showed you the 'shirt' card that I made for my dad - which was so easy to make!  Today I thought I would share how I made it!

Father's Day 2011

Since Father's Day is just around the corner, I thought I would post some pictures of our 2011 Father's Day.  I found these great free printables online here, and got a bit creative with them...

A Beautiful Birthday Calendar

I have been meaning to share this amazing gift that I received for my birthday this year of my very special friend, Mel.

My Wrapping Station

I started to make-over my home office a few months back.  I showed you the before pictures quite a while ago, but progress has been slow, due to my indecisiveness, so I don't have much to report back sorry!  I am currently doing an online course with the amazing Aby Garvey from Simplify 101, called Organise your Creative Workspace.  I am now slowly unpacking my creative process and my style, in order to design the perfect home office/creative studio for me!  So, it is going to be a little while before you see any 'after' pictures!

A little side project however, has been my wrapping station.  I had found my inspiration and pinned it to my Pinterest board, and hunted local shops for the bits and pieces that I needed to make it a reality.   One might say I am 'wrapped' with the outcome!  Let's take a closer look...

A Wedding Day Survival Kit for Lovers of Wine and Cheese

I posted a little while ago about the amazing Wedding Day Survival Kit that my sisters gave me on my special day - you can read about it here.

One of my beautiful sisters recently got married, so we had to get the creative juices flowing in order to come up with a wedding survival kit that was suited to her modern lifestyle and outlook on the world.  One of Nicky and Simon's favourite things to do is to go for wine and cheese at Oxford Street (one of Brisbane's most trendy restaurant strips).  So, my other sister and I put our heads together and came up with a survival kit that wasn't so traditional, rather contemporary, however still really meaningful.

We scripted a poem, framed it in this gorgeous frame (which I bought at Big W), added some handmade wine charms (which I will post about someday soon), a bottle of Moet and some strawberries...  and there we had our modern twist on the Wedding Day Survival Kit.

My Wedding Day Survival Kit

It is a bit of a family tradition that we give each other what we call a 'Wedding Day Survival Kit'.  It is something that we hold really close to our hearts, because it is actually something that our dear departed Granny gave to my Mum and Dad 37 years ago.  She gave them their 'kit' when they moved into their first house in 1975.  We have adopted the idea and replicated over the recent years, as each of us girls have been married.