More Boxes...and Goodies!

Anyone else find this picture attractive? My name is Jenn and I'm a member of Containers Anonymous. My fetish started out as just one of the tasks I perform weekly as part of my job. I unload the paper order when it arrives on Thursdays. (BTW, this is time management at its best, because I don't have to feel like I need to go to the gym after all the boxes I schlep from the lobby of the cafe to various places in the back room. Imagine me on a stepstool, and you'll get the idea.)

As I unpacked things, I came across sturdy cardboard boxes. Harmless to you, but to someone who sees many mundane containers as possible altering opportunities, it was the beginning of the end. It was the packaging for the retail products that really got me in trouble. A beautiful blank canvas was what I saw, and since I knew their final destination is the recycling dumpster out back, it became my own little mission to repurpose some of these beauties for a better end.

Such is the case with three of these. They came stuffed with dark chocolate covered graham crackers in packs of 4. I loved the flap opening, and claimed them immediately. I have not felt all that much in the spirit of the season, but yesterday a wild hare of an idea snagged my creativity and my love of baking. Okay, that's just a fancy way of saying that I finally got my rear in gear and made cookies and altered the boxes to prettify them for the neighbors.

I employed the same simple fold as you go method that I used on the smaller Christmas Countdown boxes, and each box used a 6 5/8" x 12" piece. This didn't cover the bottom of the box, but I didn't care. Who looks at the bottom of a box of cookies anyway?

I used up some more of my stash of retired Dashing DSP, and pulled sentiments from Snowflake Spot, Sincere Salutations, Many Merry Messages, and Peaceful Wishes to create the card. I wanted to keep it simple, so I used Real Red and Baja Breeze and embellished them with Felt Flurries and some of that great non-SU! (Michael's) ribbon.

Now I just have to deliver them, and I want to do that after the mailman completes his rounds. A side note: the cookies are called cream cheese spritz cookies. They are the best little sinful things you'll put in your mouth, I promise! They're called "spritz" cookies because the shapes are made using a cookie press, which spritzes them out. (I don't know why really, I just made that up.) They can be made as cookies you roll into balls and bake, and they taste just as good!

Here's the recipe. Double it, or you'll be sorry!

1 stick butter (no substitutions), at room temp
3 oz. cream cheese (you can substitute lowfat or fat free here)
1 C. sugar
1 egg yolk
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. baking powder
2 1/4 C. flour

Combine the ingredients in the order listed and chill if desired for 30 min. Bake on UNGREASED cookie sheets for 13-15 min. at 350. Sprinkle with colored sugar BEFORE baking if desired.

Let me know if you try them, and what you think!

Don't Believe Everything You Read

ARGH!!!! I'm very frustrated right now. Thanks to a loyal reader, I was informed that the innocent email I received several weeks ago providing information leading me to believe I could send Christmas cards--why would I suspect this to be untrue?--was BOGUS. Walter Reed Army Medical Center will NOT accept cards addressed to "A Recovering Wounded Soldier".

The GOOD NEWS is that the Red Cross is collecting cards and will distribute them to recovering soldiers and veterans on my behalf. The BAD NEWS is that the deadline for posting these cards is Dec. 10! If you'd like to put some cards in the mail for these heroes, here's the CORRECT address to send them to:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD. 20791-5456

The cards that were made on Sunday were just a fraction of the cards that have been signed by my customers the last few weeks, so we will still have a very good stash to send out on Wednesday. Live and learn, peeps! Thanks a BUNCH to Teresa for alerting me and saving the day for the cooperative effort at Starbucks!!

Stampin' at Starbucks

WOW! What a fun afternoon I just had! Today was the first day for customers, friends of mine, and anyone who just happened in off the street to make a Christmas card for a recovering soldier spending the holidays at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Things started off slowly, and I was feeling a bit vulnerable sitting in the cafe with all my supplies set up and nobody to stamp with. But then they began to arrive. My first stampers were a family with 2 elementary aged boys, Spencer and Hunter. Their mom Alecia, is a regular. Her husband even came along and made a card, though he claimed he wasn't crafty (he did great!).

When they finished, Kayla, a high school student, and her mom Julie, along with 7-year-olds Ramsey, Ashlin, and Kim sat down and put together cards. The girls were very happy to use their muscles to punch out the circles, and even more serious about the messages they wrote inside. They moved to a separate table so they could take their time to write and free up the stamping space. Precious, I tell you!

Next was Robby, another regular, who loves to stamp but just doesn't have a group of gals to do it with! We just found out about our shared passion for papercrafting this week, and she sent out an email to her friends about what I was doing! I hope she comes to my stamp-a-stack sometime.

Lisa and Jennifer and their daughters Katie and Kaitlyn (also 7) were next, and these girls really went to town decorating the inside of their cards. I know whoever receives these will be touched.

James, an avid crafter already at the age of 5, waited the longest, almost 15 minutes, for the table to clear so he could stamp with his mom, Jodie. Over and over, families thanked me for doing this, and asked if other Starbucks were doing this as well. To my knowledge, we're the only one, and the real kudos should go to Kimmy, my manager, for approaching me with the opportunity to stamp in the store. James was adorable, because he not only punched out circles, attached ribbon, and signed his name, he copied the words "Merry Christmas" in his own, very clear handwriting from one of the stamps I had...and included the fine print "copyright 2006 Stampin' Up!" wording on the stamp as well! So sweet.

The last two stampers of the day were "accidental stampers." They happened to sit at the table adjacent to my stamping area, which had been being used by stampers all afternoon. I was in the back of the store doing something when they took their seats, so when I came back, I said, "Oh, are you here to make a card?" The dad said that they were just sitting there, but Stirling's interest was piqued and she wanted to make a card. This sweet little 6-year-old worked very hard to make the card--she and everyone else commented about the mono adhesive!--and signed her entire name in large letters on the back. Then her brother, Ian, decided he wanted to make one. The children's grandparents were along for the afternoon outing, and they offered to buy me coffee for what I was doing! Ian stamped a few greetings on his card, and signed his name too.

It was so great to have our regulars respond to this opportunity, and to meet some new friends along the way. 18 hand stamped cards were created today, and I'm sure encourage health and healing in whoever receives them.

If you'd like to join the cause to bless a soldier this Christmas, feel free to join me at one of the following times:

Wednesday, Dec. 10, from 7-9 pm
Sunday, Dec. 14, from 2-4 pm
Tuesday, Dec. 16, from 1:30-3:30 pm

If you're not local, but you'd still like to participate, here's the address:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Ave. NW
Washington, Dc 20307-5001

This Ain't Your Mama's Box of Christmas Cards!

I know there hasn't been much to view this week. After all that mass production on Monday, I was not really in the mood to go near my craft room the rest of the week! Even though I wasn't feeling crafty, I continued to read blogs, and I earmarked several things to try.

I came home from Starbucks with this massive ache near the nape of my neck, radiating upward into my scalp. YUCK! I took ibuprophen and that didn't work, so I resorted to my chilled sock filled with rice. I am happy to report that I can now turn my head to the left. This put me in a better frame of mind to consider making something.

Earlier this week I saw what's officially referred to as a pizza box, due to how the lid hinges open like the famous fast food container. It's made from designer series paper, and is very elegant, in my opinion. What's AWESOME about it is that it's an excellent container for 4 or 5 standard sized 4.25" x 5.5" cards and their envelopes. What a Christmas gift for a coworker or party hostess or neighbor or teacher!

This interior view shows how great designer paper works as the medium for this box. The box is automatically decorated inside and out with NO work on your part. I'm lovin' this! Thank you, Susie Nelson, for doing all the math on this project.

The November Stamp-A-Stack will feature 5 Christmas cards with this box as a bonus. Are you coming? The gals I mass produced all those cards for will get one too.

ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE: my son has discovered Weird Al, the guy who did parodies of all the great '80's music, perhaps most notably "Eat It" (originally "Beat It" by Michael Jackson). Oh my how these song lyrics stay in my head, and I find this very ironic, since I can't remember having to be somewhere, but these lyrics won't LEAVE my brain's hard drive! I didn't like him all that much the first time around, and now I get to hear him again! Some things about being a teenager must be classic.

Happy rest of this lovely fall weekend to you!

Productive Day

Ever wonder what your friendly, neighborhood barista does on her day off? She cuts card stock!

This afternoon I spent about 4 hours measuring, cutting, counting, recounting, and bagging up:

67 8.5" x 11" sheets of card stock
6 12" x 12" sheets of designer paper
360" of ribbon
54 snowflakes
18 brads
90 envelopes

That's enough stuff to make 90 cards for an upcoming Christmas Stamp-A-Stack for a group of 6 women at an office in Buckhead. I'm really excited about this opportunity to connect with these women after hours at their place of business. Nobody has to clean their house, or even go anywhere. Everything's coming to them--we're even bringing in dinner! They're going to have a little more margin in their holiday season, since, for $35, they'll go home with 15 unlike anyone else's Christmas cards in 3 hours' time!

There's still time for me to do this for YOUR group of friends! Contact me and we'll get a date on the calendar, or come with your group of friends to my November SAS on Sat., Nov. 15, from 10a-1p. Leave me a comment to indicate your interest!

Christmas Cards Completed

Recently I posted some cards that were in process for a Christmas Stamp-A-Stack that I'm doing in November. Remember? Well, today my order came from SU!, and I finished what had been in my brain waiting for supplies.

The first card is the "before" version, and the second is the final. I didn't end up liking the ribbon that I had picked out for this card. It doesn't contrast enough with the Chocolate Chip mat, so I went another direction. Instead of a bow, I tied two smaller pieces and added a tag greeting.


The second set of cards shows the addition of stamped snowflakes from the Snow Burst set. I used a Sahara Sand Stampin' Write Marker, and I think I like how it turned out. The ribbon is from the Holiday Mini Catalog, which debuts Oct. 1. I'm debating between this ribbon and a 1" red and cream striped ribbon. Decisions!

Thoughts? Reactions? Thanks for weighing in. It's really helpful!