BLOG CANDY NOW CLOSED!!
THE WINNER OF THE POLKA DOT BASICS SET IS COMMENT NUMBER 199!! ALLY V!! HERE IS WHAT SHE SAID:
Love your packaging ideas today! And that scarf is beautiful!! The colours are gorgeous!
I think we’re skipping a big family present this year as we are going on vacation over the winter holidays, lol!
Thanks for the great tutorials!
Ally, please e-mail me at oehlers@verizon.net with you address so I can send out your goodies! Thank you all for playing and I see many of you will be coming back via subscription! Thanks!
Welcome to the day I play for the Stamp Simply Celebration Day!! Firstly…congrats a million times over to the exquisite Sharon Johnson for reaching the million milestone on her blog! I have lots to share with you today, so please take the time to relax and enjoy!
I just can’t wait to show what I have shared today for you! I have to say it is such a busy time of the year, you just go crazy with all of the things you have to get done! Not to mention, who has the money to buy little presents for everyone this year. So I am about to make your life a LOT easier today. Need a hostess gift, a gift for your kid’s crossing guard, bus driver, or anything small like that? Well, I am here to show you how to make something elegant to give that is so simple it is silly. Here is what I did.
Get a box of brownies (I get the ones with chocolate chunk 
) , get some mini cupcake foil wrappers. Put said brownie mix into cupcake wrappers and bake. Then pour a bag of chocolate chips in a bowl and put the bowl of chips in the microwave for exactly one minute. No more! Pull them out and stir, stir, stir until all smooth. Pour the chocolate out onto parchment paper (or foil if you have no parchment). take an offset spatula and smooth out evenly into a sheet of chocolate about 1/4 inch thick. Work quickly. Let dry completely for an hour or overnight. I simly took a juice glass and used that as my circle cutter. So cut out circles of chocolate when dry. Then take a little bit of vanilla icing and crush some peppermints/candy canes and add them to the top of the chocolate disc. Put the chocolate disc on the top of the brownie with some icing as glue, and you are done! So easy, but it looks so special! I have left finished and unfinished brownies in the picture, so you can see how nice they look with the chocolate discs on top!
Using the Polka Dots Basics set as well as the Holiday Tags 2008 edition set from Papertrey Ink and some shimmery paper, I made a band to go around this great box! It is the perfect size for holding four of these treats, or two small ornaments! This is how I used this box I designed in another post. What a nice box! Here are the instructions for you:
Cut card stock to 10 x 81/2
Along the 10 inch side: Score at 2,4,6,8
Along the 8 1/2 inch side: Score at 2, 6 1/2.
Cut two of the side tabs off completly. Shown here:
Then cut along lines of the remaining tabs. Adhere with strong adhesive. I use red line tape found here. You can finish the front flap with pinking shears or a decorative edge. I did not do this on the project here.
If you would like to make one, please show us what you did and how you used it using the keyword at Splitcoast : SSC08…we would love to see it!
and a card also using the “Holiday Tags” set as well as “Spooky Sweets II” and “Beautiful Blooms” to finish it off!
Also, don’t forget some things you may already have lying around your house! This was a great sliding box I had kept which contained a German Smoker. I just covered it in this great 7 Gypsies Flocked Paper and added a tag using the Holiday Tags 2008 edition from Papertrey as well as some Papertrey ribbon and voila! A gorgeous box which took two seconds to “re-purpose” and hold a homemade scarf I made using pre-cut quilt squares and jersey fabric for the backing both of which I found at Joanne Fabrics.
I DO hope you enjoyed all of this inspiration! Give the box a try, I think you will really love it! Now for some great goodies!! As Sharon celebrates 1 million hits on her blog, I am celebrating 500,000 
How would you like to win the Papertrey Polka Dot Basics set for all of the fun we are haivng? It is one of my favorite sets. So versatile, so great and easy to line up! Before you enter PLEASE READ these Stamp Simply”Netiquette” Blog Candy rules HERE.
OK…now here is the question you need to answer to enter:
Leave a comment telling me exactly what your big family gift will be this year!
Entries will be open until midnight TONIGHT (Tuesday night). Yes TONIGHT! So hurry up and leave a comment, because it will go quickly! I will pick a winner at midnight tonight and add it to the top of this post. Good luck!! To see the full calendar of events for this week of fun, you can go here!
Stamps: Polka Dot Basics, 2008 Holiday Tags Edition, Beautiful Blooms, Spooky Sweets II
Paper: White Shimmer, Pure Poppy, 7 gypsies, White
Ink: Pure Poppy, Versamark
Ribbon: Pure Poppy Stitched Grosgrain, Gold Sheer Metallic
Other: Filigree Detail Gold Embossing Powder
Our big family gift this year is my very first grandchild–a boy to be born sometime next week. If not before, she is to be induced on Dec 11. What a great gift for all of us. He is really a miracle baby–long story–but it has been a long journey for my dd and her dh.
What a lovely project–those brownies looks yummy! Thanks for the chance to win the PTI Polka Dot Basics stamp set.
darlene
yummy looking cupcakes and project! our family gift will be a new digital camera!!
I think our big present will be a big flat TV – too big to make my own box.
Wow, those brownies look delicious. We are a struggling family of three. Any gifts that we buy are for our son that has special needs. This year he gets a portable DVD player.
What cute litte boxes along with yummy cupcakes . Will certainly be trying them .
No major purchases here this year for adults but thanks for the chance to win this great stamp set
Hi… what a beautiful scarf and you wrapped it so elegantly… The cupcakes look so pretty, going to share about them with my Mom… We are not doing a big gift this year due to finances, but we are going to cherish each other and focus on the boys having a fun christmas season… we are putting up our tree this evening, and my youngest is so excited and can hardy wait to see how beautiful it is, his words… Thanks and take care and blessings, dawn g
Love your projects today Becky. Your work is always so inspiring and beautiful! Our big family present this year is the Wii Fitness, so we can all get in shape.
Thanks for the chance to win!
What a great idea! I am definitely going to try this one! Our family gift is spending as much time as we can with each other and our grandchildren – my husband and I decided to give each other a GPS so we don’t get lost anymore when we go for a drive!! Merry Xmas!
I love how the box matches the tops of the brownies. I’m a chocolate chunk kind of girl, myself!
We’re giving my grandfather a new flat-screen monitor for Christmas. His vision is deteriorating and he has an old-fashioned monitor that he has trouble seeing. I hope this new one helps! Thanks for the chance to win!
Our “big family gift” isn’t really a gift for us per se, but rather it is brain surgery for our puppy. (It’s our “family gift” and our family vacation for this year and next year as well. This “free” puppy has now cost us over $17,000 – and no, that’s not a typo – in vet bills, but with a miraculous outcome.)
We adopted a very special little fellow who, unbeknownst to us, had a catastrophic brain malformation. “Toughie” (that’s his nickname, which he earned for how hard he worked to overcome his disabilities) had an emergency experimental brain operation at age 4 months to save his life.
This summer, he had another 7 hour, very complex brain operation by one of only two vet neurosurgeons in the US who does this kind of surgery. We had to travel to a neighboring state for the surgery — thank goodness it was so close! The only other vet who could have done this surgery is on the opposite coast.
Because of the cost of his treatment (he’s only two years old, and he’s had a total of 9 ICU admissions and 4 MRI’s at specialty hospitals in addition to his two major surgeries) we made the conscious decision to get this lifesaving surgery for him and to forgo vacations and “fancy gifts” until we paid off the credit card we used to pay for his treatment.
The gift to us, truly, is that the surgeries were a success and we feel truly blessed that he has done as well as he has. He’s an amazing little guy with an amazing personality and he’s a joy in our lives, a wonderful gift from God.
BUT, I LOVE this box and your brownie idea — I plan to make many of these for people we would ordinarily buy holiday gifts for but just can’t afford to this year. Thanks so much for some great ideas!
WOW! As usual I am inspired! Our big family gift was actually purchased last month. Our long time washer was consuming too much energy, so we purchased an energy efficient washer and dryer and reduced our next power bill by 75%. Christmas came early!
The kids are grown and (half-way) gone, so we aren’t really doing a big family gift this year. But we just celebrated our 28th anniversary and my husband surprised me with a new digital camera (Yay!) — and he hinted that he wouldn’t mind having a portable GPS, so I think those will be our big “couple” gifts for the year.
I love your ideas and how you incorporate different sets together. I don’t really do much for Halloween, but have seen parts of Spooky Sweets used in such interesting ways that it may be worth adding to my lengthy Papertrey wish list. And — I’d be thrilled to win Polka Dot Basics as everytime there is a new release it gets kicked out of my shopping cart to make room for something else! Thanks for the chance to win!
I don’t know that we are doing a BIG family gift this year. We are trying to save every penny or put it towards our bills because we would like to buy a new house if we can sell this one! Next year we decided it will be time for a Wii! I would love to win this set! I have been drooling over it for a long time!!!!!
Those brownies look yummy! I love your projects. Thank you for the box tutorial.
My husband and I don’t really buy a family gift each year, buy maybe this year, we were thinking of buying a laptop. It’s really small but has alot of great options in it.
Wonderful box Becky! Love how rich and festive it looks. We are all sharing a wireless printer this year, and we can start to print out all our photos (and I can scrapbook them;))
We don’t usually decide what our big gifts will be this early — but we have been lingering in front of the large screen LCD TVs lately, so I’m thinking that might be it.
I love this project idea with the brownies. And I sure hope that I’m the lucky winner of the PTI Polka Dot Basics stamp set!
Becky, your gift ideas with boxes are darling! What a talented gal you are!
We don’t usually do a big family gift, but each person gets an important gift with some smaller gifts thrown in the mix. My husband wants a really nice set of skillets from Chef’s catalog, sunny boy wants one of the new Star Wars Lego sets, sweet daughter hasn’t made her mind up, and I think I want stamping stuff! Hope you get your wish too Becky!
I am so impressed with your terrific ideas. This will make it so easy to “impress” the ladies in my Bible study group. I would never have thought of these. Thank you so much.
My husband & I don’t exchange big gifts, we already have what we need. We’ll focus on our children & their families and our church giving tree.
Thanks for the chance to win!
DONT ENTER ME IN THE CONTEST!!!!!!!!
YOU ROCK!! Oh my gosh!! Can I come to your house and you can bake for me? I will weigh like 1 billion pounds, but oh, I love the way you think when you cook!!!!!!
Gorgeous presentation too!!!!!!!!
Making me hungry with those brownies.
Big gift hmmmm I think with the economy the way it is right now we will be forgoing a BIG gift this year. We are very fortunate to have everything we truly need – so we will be foregoing any unnecessary spending this Christmas. I know – not much fun BUT it will be fun in Jan when my tiny credit card bills come in.
Can I still qualify for the Blog Candy – please.
The gift of being together for the holidays is the best “big” gift for my family. Love the box and can’t wait to give it a try. Thanks for the chance at some blog candy!
Those brownies look sumptuous ! Could I have one , please ?! Well, our big family gift ? I want to say a new kitchen but we will see … Thanks so much for the opportunity to win some “yummy candy” !
Becky, your packaging is beautiful! I have plans to make several baked gifts. I have a wonderful PB Fudge recipe, and everyone loves to get that gift! As for our house, we are being very practical this year, we need new living room furniture, so we are hoping that we might be able to swing that. Have a blessed Christmas, and take time to enjoy family and friends!
The brownies look so yummy, and in that box, what a great gift! Your hand made scarf and box are beautiful as well. Thank you for the great ideas and how to, and the chance to win this great polka dot set! Smiles!
My mouth is watering looking at those brownies! I just started using Papertrey Stamps and really love them.
This year we aren’t doing family gifts. My daughter and her family are traveling to NC to help needy families and my husband and I are joining with several other families and adopting two needy families.
One has 4 children and no place to live and we found out yesterday, they have an apartment. Now we are scurring to help with odds and ends to help furnish the apartment.
wow, beautiful and yummy! Thanks for the chance to win some blog candy. Our big gift this year was a new tv we’ve been waiting forever to get, and a playstation 3.
I love the box, what a great idea, i make all sorts of cookies for Christmas and this is a perfect way to give them out….Thanks for Sharing…Happy Holidays
What a great idea – love the tips you’ve provided. Hope I’ll be able to try them out. Thank you for taking the time to share them and for offering the blog candy. I’d love to win the PTI set. We don’t do big family gifts but we just bought Tivo for the house as we were fed up with the cable DVR service as we kept missing our favorite Food Network shows.
I am so making those brownies! Those are fab!!! We aren’t technically doing a big family gift this year but Santa is bringing a Wii for my son and I’ve gotten my hubby a Blu-Ray DVD player so we’ll definitely enjoy time as a family together down in the basement with both of those new “toys”!
Love your packaging…and goodies, as usual!!
No big gifts this year. Our 5 month old grandson (our 1st grandchild), Sawyer, is the best gift of all!
Thanks for the chance to win!
The brownies look delicious so why am I obsessing over the box? It’s a paper thing. I am going to make those just to use the box! Thanks for such an easy idea.
This year has been hard on us as I am sure you have heard many times. My husband was in the mortgage business so its been a hard two year actually. This holiday season we used every frequent flyer mile we had and we are surprising our four kids with a trip to see our family on the east coast. We don’t have family out here in CA. We tried to get out there over summer but our budget wouldn’t allow it. My husband’s new job will now make it possible for us to have money to actually eat once we get there. We will be giving our kids a trip to see some of their favorite relatives along with going to some cool places like… the Welcome to Scranton sign from “The Office”, the “Ace of Cakes” building, Mood fabrics from “Project Runway”. They love these shows and will be thrilled just to see the places. These excursions won’t cost a dime but I know will be remembered because of their meaning. That’s what we will be giving for our family present this year. The gift of thought!
Congrats on 500,000!! I so love the polka dot basic stamp set!!! Wii is the top of our list!!! But hubby finally graduating from college at age 38 is our early Christmas gift!!
The brownies look yummy!!
Hope
The big family gift will be to replace an old 35 inch tube tv with a flat screen lcd tv. If I”m lucky it will go into my “playroom”.
WOW – so much inspiration in one post! Love those brownies, and that scraf is fabulous! Congrats on the hits too! As for big gift – I think it will be a big screen TV if my husband and I can agree on what we “need”
You know how that differs between genders 
I love the gift box.
We don’t really do a “big” Christmas gift except for the kids, unless you want to count going to visit family in another state for several days.
Awesome packaging projects and those brownies look so good. I could really use one tonight! We are getting new carpeting on Thursday and new family room furniture on Friday so I guess that’s our big gift this year. We are also hosting a large holiday open house on the 21st and the real big gift will be spending time with family and friends that we don’t get to see on Christmas day.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Teresa
We’re not doing a big family gift this year. Last year it was a Wii, so this year will include a couple of games for the Wii, board games, and DVDs. Love the cupcake idea–thanks!
Hi Becky,
The brownies look so good. We are going to keep it very simple this year and our only and big family gift is the WII. We figures its something “computerized” that my seven year old could do with mom and dad.
I love the box idea and also the scarf! Your brownies with the mint look delicious and chocolate mint is a favorite of mine. We are not giving gifts except for our “little people” this year. All the grown-ups are going to visit and eat and just enjoy being with family (it is a big family).
The brownies look fabulous!
The big gift this year are plane tickets for my son and his girl friend to come visit. He’s in NH, I’m in Florida.
I can’t wait to see him!
Howdy Becky! Our big family gift this year is going home for Christmas for 2 weeks! We’re excited because we moved all the way across the country and away from all of families and are looking forward to seeing them and all of our friends! Great projects Becky!
Your samples are terrific! I’m a chocoholic and I’m trying to watch my weight, so those brownies are mocking me!!! The scarf is beautiful.
We aren’t doing a big family gift this year. We have one in college and another going next year, so things are tight. But having our family together and happy and healthy is more than enough of a gift.And the gift of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the most priceless gift of all!
Thanks for the chance to win the awesome blog candy. I love polka dots, so this set is great!
Hello Becky! I love your ideas with the boxes!
I don’t really know what will be our family gift… but my husband bought a bix box of something long time ago. He told that it is for me for Christmas. I don’t know what is inside, so I am very excited!
I don’t know why it says I posted at 2:53am on 12/3/08 but I really posted at 10:53pm on 12/2/08.So my entry should still be eligible.Sorry for the confusion.
The brownies look fab!! We decided not to do a big family gift this year. Just being with family and friends is enough!!
Love your projects Becky! Our big ticket item is purchasing gifts for a family of 7 through the Salvation Army. We are giving this year instead of receiving.
We won’t be buying a family gift. We will be together and that is a huge gift.
What a great idea with the brownies! and boy do I love that scarf…off to the fabric stash…I can sew straight lines, yes I can! But what I would really love to do is play with polka dot basics….our family Big gift this year is going to our eldest daughter who has is in love with a man who lives halfway around the world…and we are sending her to spend the New Year with him.
Don’t enter me in the blog candy, Becky, but I had to say I love your boxes and card. All that intricate cutting is gorgeous on the card!
Love your packaging ideas today! And that scarf is beautiful!! The colours are gorgeous!
I think we’re skipping a big family present this year as we are going on vacation over the winter holidays, lol!
Thanks for the great tutorials!