Dressing Up a Gift with the eCraft

 

One of the things that I love about my eCraft is that it allows me to take something that is bland and boring and turn it into something beautiful.  That is one of the things that I did with my eCraft for Mother’s Day, but this is something that can be done for any gift-giving holiday.  For Mother’s Day I got my mom and my mother-in-law a necklace and they came in these silver metallic boxes.  With boxes like these, I don’t need to get out the wrapping paper, but I did feel like they needed to be dressed up, so my trusty eCraft came to my rescue!

Using the Gift Bow file from the Christmas Gift Bags & Boxes collection at SVGCuts.com, I imported it into my eCraftshop Pro software and I was off cutting.  I used double sided papers from K&Company (from Citronella and Poppy Seed) so that you get that little peek of color inside the bow.  Such a nice touch.

To assemble the bow, I followed the video that SVG Cuts created to go with it.

 

The doily underneath is the My Favorite Things High Tea Party Doily die and I also die cut the Tim Holtz ticket strips to make the “tags”.  Using Distress Inks to match the colors found in the patterned paper, I colored the tags and then used some Tim Holtz Visual Artistry Seamless Experience stamps to embellish the tags.  I then handwrote the “To” and “From” for a more personal touch.  (We affectionately call my MIL “Gal” in case you were wondering).  Once the bow was assembled and everything else was ready to go, all I needed to do was adhere it on the box.

 

To finish off this post, I thought I would share with all of you a story about my Mother’s Day.  First off, I am leery of Mother’s Day.  Every single Mother’s Day that I have had since becoming a mother…something has gone wrong.  From the grill catching on fire, to a flat tire on the car, to baby Jared spitting up all over me and having to spend the rest of the day in borrowed clothes…Mother’s Day has not been kind to me.  Mother’s Day for 2012 actually wasn’t half bad!  Did something go wrong?  Yes, but it could have been so much worse.  We were leaving the house to go to our Mother’s Day lunch with all the moms and extended family.  I put these boxes in a white plastic grocery bag along with the cards to bring along.  I needed to drive that day, so I handed the bag to my husband so that the kids didn’t smash them up.  We stopped at a local store to get flowers for my husband’s grandmother and I ran in the store leaving him in the car with the kids.  When I got back to the car, I noticed that the car was cleaner.  I admit that my car is not the cleanest thing and usually the cup holders have old drinks sitting there which it did that day.  My husband turned to me and said, I cleaned up for you.  I said thank you and then asked him where the bag with the presents was.  The look on his face was….well you can guess.  Turned out that he used that white plastic grocery bag to throw away some of the garbage and did not take the gifts out of the bag!  Quickly he fished the boxes and cards out, but it was too late.  The bows and cards were wet.  Yuck!  Fortunately they did not get soaked and he spent the rest of the drive cleaning them off so that at least we had something to give the moms.  So overall, not a bad Mother’s Day…at least for me.