After being spoiled rotten on Mother's Day with chocolates and cards and gifts kind words and yummy meals (particularly Ryan's homemade frozen strawberry lemonade), I'm in a giving mood. I love to give gifts, and in the last few years I've really tried to give personalized gifts that are meaningful--much to the chagrin of gift-card and cash loving folks everywhere. I thought it would be fun to show a few things and give a few things away. All you have to do to enter to win is make a comment by 11:59 pm MST on Friday night (May 16, 2008). Include in your comment a favorite gift that you have given or received. All those who comment will be entered for each giveaways unless you specify otherwise.
You may know from my previous giveaway that I love to make cards. They have been a favorite gift for my cousins and siblings that are getting married, since newlyweds have so many thank yous to write. I have two packages of 9 cards each to give away--six are thank you cards shown on the left, and three are flowery blank-inside cards on the right, and of course I'll include the envelopes. Remember to send lots of good mail with these cards!
This is one of my favorite quotes by President Hinckley and I have loved doing these vinyl lettering tiles for my brothers and sisters for their birthdays this year (sorry to ruin the surprise for those of you who haven't yet celebrated your 2008 birthday!). I get my lettering from www.simplydesignedexpressions.com--there are so many companies that do vinyl lettering, but I've always been happy with Cara's work. I posted pictures of some glass blocks that I made for Lindsey for Christmas here. With vinyl lettering, it's so simple to put together gifts like this. The tiles and blocks are pretty inexpensive at Home Depot or Lowe's and Cara sends instructions on how to apply the vinyl. For this giveaway, one lucky winner will get the vinyl lettering for this saying to be put on a 12"x12" tile (the tile is not included).
One of my favorite documents from my church is "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" and I love this little snippet which sums up what it takes to make a successful family (which is becoming harder and harder in this world!). I like to paint and antique a frame then personalize it with their name and marriage date and give it as a wedding gift. For this giveaway, I'll make a personalized name page with anniversary (8x10) for one lucky winner (the frame will not be included). These are pretty easy for me to make, so if you really really want one and don't win, I might be convinced to do a few more.
I made these fun letters for baby Grace and her sisters to hang in their room. One winner will get to choose a letter/name and general color scheme.
I've been making rag quilts for a couple of years (thanks to great instructions from my amazingly crafty friend Amanda) for my new baby nieces and nephews. This time I had a few extra squares, so I made some matching burpcloths for Grace. Some time in my blog future I'll do a rag quilt give-away, but for now I just thought these were too cute not to show off.So, to recap the rules:
**Post a comment and tell me about a favorite gift you've given or received.
**Each person who comments will be entered in each of the drawings (unless you indicate otherwise).
**Winners will be randomly selected; I'll contact the winners and announce on the blog on Saturday, May 17th.
Hope to send a good gift your way!
25 comments:
I have to say that I HATE gift cards and cash-- so impersonal. Any fav gift I have gotten has been because it took some thought to pick it out. One that comes to mind was a little statuette I got from my dad of a girl holding a cat in her lap. He isn't one to give gifts... my mom usually takes care of that, so this was special. I am an animal lover, and everytime I see it, I know my dad loves me, and that he knows me.
I always love getting books. :)
What an awesome give away! Thanks!
Well, now I HAVE to win! I love those quilts. I have been begging my Mom to make me one for years. And those letters are beautiful! (hint, hint!)
My favorite gift I ever received was an ABC book made by my husband. Each letter stood for something he would do for me. (B: Breakfast in bed. C: Car wash, etc...) It was so sweet because many of the things required a lot of him.
Great idea Lisa! I am excited for a chance to win something cute! My favorite gifts are the small personal ones. Although I do like being spoiled with something big and unexpected on occasion. I love when Spencer makes me a CD with songs that remind him of me and he gets all sentimental when we listen to it! I like to give themed gifts that tell a story. For a baby shower I might put all the things to take care of a baby in a day in a big basket with a poem or for wedding I will put a big clock with other gifts that indicate take the "time" to play, work, and relax together! I have also done all white items for a wedding like towels, white house decor, dishes, etc, representing the purity of a temple marriage. Kinda cheesy but fun!
What fun! My favorite gift?? Hum...that is hard, because I am really not a big fan of surprises. Well, I like surprises that are spontaneous, but expected ones (like birthday and Christmas gifts are excruciating for me! LOL So that hurts the experience for me. Oh, but last year my best friend, who lives in Canada, came to visit. Her visit coincidentally was over my birthday. That morning she gave me the best gift. A beautiful quilt. I hadn't expected anything at all and she presented me with something so sweet and thoughtful. It was the best! :)
I'm at that stage in life where I really don't want to accumulate more stuff, so I like the sweet, thoughtful gifts of doing. Mother's Day this year was great. I have two daughters living at home. One made carnation flowers from coffee filters that she had died pink. She taped them all around my computer and left a sweet letter. The other daughter and her boyfriend bought some flowers from the nursery and filled my 2 planters with beauty. I loved both these presents.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I tagged you for a meme. You can find it here.
All the gifts you are offering are wonderful and so creative. You must have tons of fun making them.
I love charm bracelets, so I love getting beautiful charms for it :) You have such lovely prizes! Thanks for the chance to win
bunnybox9 at gmail dot com
Holy cow - you are by far THE most talented/crafty person ever! I love all that stuff. Amazing!
My favorite gifts have been gifts for my babies. I treasure baby blankets (homemade) so much because they last (sometimes) forever and the memories are so special to me. Whenever I still see a few of them wandering around, I remember "Oh that's from aunt Becky and she gave it to me at a wedding reception when Emma was 3 months old" or something like that. Besides, babies spend so much time wrapped up in them.
I like the gifts of thoughtfulness and time. I love a homemade coupon book that Peter made for me one year. This year, he helped me with a BIG old sink full of dishes Saturday night, and that would have been enough for Mother's day for me!
I usually don't comment on blogs, but I will make an exception this time. I love all your homemade cards and the tiles that you do for your family. I have also have received one of your rag quilts and I love it and use it all the time. You are truly one of a kind. I feel blessed to have you as a friend. My favorite gift that I gave is when my sister and I snuck leopard underwear in my mom's Christmas present from my dad. That one always brings a smile to my face. Of course I can't mention that without mentioning the leopard underwear I got for my 30th birthday and graciously donated to D.I. LOL
What a cute idea! And what a generous friend you are!! My favorite gift I gave was last year for Christmas. I made my parents a wedding video for them. Now is it a standard thing to have at a wedding, but they never had one. We were able to track down some actual live footage from their wedding day and we incorporated that in. It was a lot of work, but so worth it!
My favorite gifts are homemade--such as a blanket from my mom or a really cute calendar my sister-in-law made for me. In a perfect world, I would try harder to make homemade gifts myself; until then, the next best thing I like to give is a shoe charm to my mom or mother-in-law every time a new grandchild is born (with the name of the grandchild engraved on the sole).
My fav gift was from my son. A envelope full of money
dolls123[at]gmail;[dot]com
YOU are the gift queen! I loved the cards you gave us at our wedding shower and we LOVE LOVE LOVED your Harper Christmas Mix extravaganza. Lisa for President!
You are so creative! Lets see! I think I liked this Mother's Day. I was in Florida and my friend's husband and kids brought me flowers. It was so sweet and totally unexpected!
I'm glad I didn't miss this one. I have to say that my favorite gift (of recent) is the "mother of the year" award Jud gave me signed by the dean of the law school. It totally blew me away and was so thoughtful. AND I loved, loved, loved the cards you sent me. So Cute!!
What a sweet idea, you are so creative! I never comment, but these are so cute.
So my favorite gift of late was my last birthday. I was working nights at the hospital and happened to schedule my self for my birthday...oops. Bryan had friends come over and pulled an all nighter as well decorating our living room, paint, furniture, etc. and his Mom even cleaned all my carpets. I felt like I was on "While you were Out". My favorite gift I gave was a scrapbook for Bryan's grandparents, his Grandpa has Alzheimers, so I got each of the 10 kids to write out memories with grandpa and put it together with pictures of all the families. They love it, even if he doesn't remember where it came from...LOL.
I love giving gifts but I am going to be selfish on this one and tell you about a gift my grandmother Fidler gave me. She made a scarf out of her Jr. prom dress that she wore like 65 years ago and then gave the scarf to me. It is so meaningful and I wear it all winter long! :) Lisa, you're great!
One of my favorites was my Garden of Love, which was conceived, built and installed by my dad for my 30th birthday. The last few years I haven't even planted it, due to Jack eating dirt and such, but this year we planted it. It's huge, he had tons of dirt hauled for it (literally) and he and my family did all the work for me.
My favorite gifts are almost all little crafty items that my kids have made. My youngest made two, in particular, that I just love. One is a snowflake magnet made out of Popsicle sticks with colorful glitter. It kept falling off the fridge until it was finally in pieces and I honestly mourned the loss of that gift when I had no choice but to throw it out. The other is a stained-glass-look star ornament made by ironing torn tissue into pieces of plastic -- then cutting it into a star shape and punching a hole and adding string. I just love that thing.
I don't know if this qualifies as a gift but ever since my two boys have been little, in fact before they were each born, I have written letters to them from me. On their birthdays, it will be observations about how they have changed over the year. This all started when I was a beehive in mutual and I wrote a letter to my future husband and I did this again when I was 18 and I think I was 21. So it's fun to look back at them, especially for my kids
One of my favorite gifts was one YOU gave me for Christmas-REMEMBER? I look at the tile everyday and I REMEMBER all the good gifts I've been given and how blessed I am!
Ooo! I almost missed this! :) I'm feeling lucky again. You're absolutely an amazing woman with incredible talent and somehow managing to make time for this with 2 busy kids and callings? I second the vote for president! I would love to be half as awesome as you.
Okay, so favorite gift... aside from being a mother, my fav is probably the cedar chest Wade bought when we were engaged 9 years ago (wow, I'm feeling surprisingly old suddenly). It's something I'll cherish for years to come, when I'm really really old.
P.S. You can leave me out of the card give-away, since I've already been so lucky to win a batch from you. :)
My favorite gifts are audiobooks. Thanks.
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