If you are looking for a way to chew up a lot of time, grab yourself the Post and Parcel Kit from Papertrey Ink.  It is one of those kits where you start out with one idea to make one thing and you end up with a hundred ideas and have a hundred things in various stages of production.  So much fun!  If I keep working, I may end up with enough tags and gift cards and envelopes to use for all my gifts in Christmas 2017.  Note I did not say for this Christmas as that is too short a deadline!

One thing, that happens to me consistently, is that the moment I decide to move a craft tool or item from my front and center storage, to a more out of the way storage due to dis-use,  I need that item.  That happened with this kit project.  I had several hot glue guns and glue sticks taking up room in my main tool drawer and they hadn’t been used for years.  Off they went to long term storage in the basement and, you guessed it, I needed that kind of glue to hold up the mail box post.  So, of course, back upstairs they came.

Here is a small selection of the fabu things I am working on:

I had the idea that I would make my own wrapping paper.  That way I could be sure that the paper and the tags match well.  The making of this little blue box covered in homemade paper, convinced me that I am hallucinating if I think I could eliminate commercial paper. I have now modified that idea considerably.

The bigger red mailbox can hold small gifts or gift cards and is decorated with texture paste using the stencils in the kit.  Isn’t that little padlock just the cutest.

The little mailbox is supposed to hold two little chocolates, but I wanted to show that it also holds one little bottle of Stickles, should any of my crafty friends be inclined to give me one of those for Xmas.  I had a issue gluing on the post to the mailbox (not in the center), and another issue with the thick embossing powder I used cracking, when I tried to roll it into the mailbox shape.  These two issues resulted in the misshapen mailbox you see here.  I am about to start over, thus my comment about chewing up time.

This one turned out very well.  The gift card slides under the bow on to the postage stamp shaped mat and the whole thing fits in the matching envelope.  The little envelope also pulls out and opens to another little postage stamp mat with the recipients name written on it. It seems I give more and more gift cards than presents with each passing Christmas so I am happy to have something with which I can personalize them.

Well it is back to the drawing board, to see if I can make a less lop sided mailbox.