Day 9 - Nasrene

So I’ll be honest.  I am not “craftily inclined,” so coming up with a cute, fun, not-too-kitschy, Christmas gift for twelve of my most crafty and creative friends was anxiety inducing.  Not to mention I obviously wanted to create something that y’all WANTED to get, and would enjoy having,

Oh yeah, and then there was that clause about it having to be constructed of materials that I readily had around my home, and OMG, the panic was on.

{I decided I was going to cheat on that part.  I certainly wouldn’t be able to find ANYTHING crafty in my house, unless you count a couple bent pipe cleaners, and Sadie’s dried-up silly putty.}

Everyone started posting about their progress, and mentioning that they had decided what they were making.  Then they were saying how far along they were in making their craft, and finally, (some particular overachievers) had to mention that their gifts were complete and ready to be mailed. 

OMG.  I started to panic again (a little).

But the I remember I had Day NINE!  The latter half of the 12 days, and thus I could relax a bit.  I didn’t have to mail out until December 11^th.  Whew!

Well, at some point during this time, my darling five-year-old daughter decided to start a…shall we say, small project.  And this small, well intended project quickly consumed a good chunk of my life.

I found myself in a house full of cardboard boxes (thanks to aforementioned five-year-old’s small project).  So I figured surely I could come up with something crafty that would make use of those boxes. (Remember the challenge was to make something with materials already on hand).  I decided on cardboard gifts tags.  And since my recycling container was filled to the brim (with boxes) I couldn’t fit any of my magazines and catalogs into it, so I’d make use of those as well, and make some homemade gift bows.  (This idea was posted by Sarah of the Avy sometime last year, so this would’ve make year two in a row that I copied one of Sarah’s ideas for a craft.)

I made the first set of gift tags AANNDD…they looked like cardboard gift tags that my daughter could’ve made.  Fail.

I made the first set of gift bows AANNDD…they were darling, but I quickly realized that I would need to buy a whole slew of MINI cardboard boxes in which to send them, so they wouldn’t get squished.  And the idea of purchasing mini cardboard boxes when I was living in a house FILLED with them, was kind of a buzz kill.  Fail.

(I know you’re probably thinking, “you couldn’t just MADE small boxes out of the larger ones!” 

Yeah, that’s not happening.)

So here it was, December 9^th!!  And with only two days left and my gift idea literally SCRAPPED, I did what any self-respecting OLW’er would do.

I had a glass of wine.  J

And that’s when it came to me!  WINE!  I have a ridiculous, freakish, almost embarrassing quantity of wine corks that I’ve “collected” over the years, most recently a pile from Boordy Vineyards, one of my most favorite local wineries.  Surely I could find SOMETHING to do with those corks, as a gift for my fellow wine-lovin’ girlfriends. 

A quick scan of Pinterest and there they were…wine cork keychains.  I even had the hardware and some decorative beads on hands to pretty them up.  The next day I ran to the hardware store and picked up the only thing I needed to make this craft:  A bag of keyrings.

On the night before crafty mail date, all through the house, I was the only creature stirring making these bad boys.  And a true Christmas miracle occurred when I was able to knock all twelve out in less than an hour!  Thirty more minutes later, these wine cork keychains were in their envelopes, ready to make their December voyage to their respective owners. 

Boordy Vineyards is a favorite place of mine because they have awesome summer and fall music festivals at the winery where you can bring a chair or blanket, and picnic lunch and just buy a couple bottles and relax with some friends.  Kids are even allowed too, so you don’t have to worry about finding a sitter.  There’s enough entertainment to keep them reasonably occupied.  I often think it would be so fun in my perfect world if we were all able to go to one of their events together.  It definitely would be right up the OLW ladies’ alley!  Since this is such a fun, favorite, place of mine, and reminds of the kind of fun WE’D all have together, it was a perfect choice.

Shockingly I didn’t have enough Boordy corks to make an even dozen (some have been broken, or lost, or sadly must’ve been accidentally thrown out and missed it’s opportunity to be turned into FINE ART ;-) but I found some other to add to the bunch that I thought were equally fun for the season…particularly two that read “the JOY of wine.”  Tis the season , afterall!