Christmas Cocoa Cocktail Kit

If you’re looking for an easy, last minute gift idea, I have the perfect one for you…Christmas Cocoa Cocktail Kits! I have made and given these away these several times in past years, but they are really perfect for 2020 and those who are social distancing.

Here are the supplies that I gathered: small bottles of peppermint flavored vodka, individual packets of mint flavored cocoa, red and green marshmallows, disposable cups, paper shred, and a cookie tin. I found the cups, cocoa, and shred paper at Walmart. These fun red and green marshmallows are a Target find. And this cookie tin is one that I picked up the day after Christmas on clearance last year. In Georgia the only place you can buy liquor is a liquor store, and you can usually buy individual bottles this size for around one dollar. You can easily substitute a little bottle of Bailey’s or Kahlua.

Arrange everything inside your tin, and wrap it up with a sweet ribbon. Another idea is to use Coca-Cola bottles and straws instead of the cocoa and marshmallows. Make sure your recipients know that this is an adults-only gift so that they don’t mistakenly hand it over to the under 21 crowd. Although you could easily make this a kids-friendly version.

  • A few other ideas for a cookie tin:
  • peppermint tea and cookies
  • cocoa and cookies for the kiddos
  • a kit for sharing while looking at Christmas lights
  • gingerbread decorating kit
  • Everything needed to leave out for Santa, like a little plate, carrots, cookies, and a drink
  • Individual bags of coffee (World Market) or k-cups, disposable coffee cups, biscotti

Only eleven more days until Christmas, and this will be an easy gift to pull together. I hope you enjoy it!

Abby

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Free Housewarming Printable

My closest friends and family know that I am a horrible gift giver. It’s not that I am stingy; it’s just that I am not big on receiving gifts myself. So coming up with gifts to give others often causes me a great deal of procrastination and stress. Earlier this week i dropped off a housewarming basket to a friend that moved just a few minutes down the road. And since I struggle with gift giving ideas, my stand-by housewarming gift is inspired by the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.

In the movie, George and Mary Bailey give the Martini family a loaf of “Bread, that their may never know hunger. Salt, that their life may always have flavor. And wine, that joy and prosperity may reign forever.” I love this for several reasons. First, the gifts in the basket are almost certain to be used and consumed. It also keeps me from having to stress about what to give when I might not know.

I do bake bread, but in this case I thought a cranberry walnut bread from our local grocery store would go with the wine I picked out. I just added a piece of ribbon on the bread for seasonal color. And, full disclosure, I know some of my friends may be looking at these pictures and thinking, “Hey, Abby gave me a Thanksgiving kitchen towel exactly like that one!” Yes, friends, I did. When our local William-Sonoma store closed I bought about 10 of them on super-duper clearance to give aways as gifts.

I want to share the printable that I made to use in my housewarming baskets. It’s free, and there’s no sign up or anything required. Just click on the link to save or print. This looks very nice printed on a piece of cardstock. I hope you find this useful and your friends and family will be blessed in their new homes.

Free house warming printable from Belle AntiquarianDownload
Click the link above the photo to download the printable for free.

For more of my blog posts with free printables, go to BelleAntiquarian.com and search “printable”.

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B2S Clip-Pin’s for Teacher


Here in the South school starts early, usually the first week of August. While the rest of the country is still enjoying the lazy, hazy days of summer, our little belles and beaus are hitting the books and getting their brains filled with knowledge.

We are very blessed and extremely thankful to have had some amazing individuals come into our lives and teach our kids. During the 9 months of the school year our kids will often spend more waking hours of their day with these teachers than with us. It’s important for us to let our kids’ teachers know from the get-go that we intend to partner with them and work together to teach our children. Because of this, and also because I am a southern lady that likes to show our hospitality and graciousness, I like to start the school year off with a small gift to the teachers. It’s never anything big, just a small gesture of “Here’s my baby. I hold them dear to my heart. Please keep them safe while they are away from me.”

This year I’ve been so busy and I’m trying to be more frugal with my crafting dollars, so I challenged myself to make Back to School teacher gifts using only materials that I already own. I decided to make some clip-pins from a previous post. Have you ever noticed that thin strip of cork that runs across the top of the chalk/white/smart board? These are perfect for that!

First up: A half-empty can of chalkboard paint from my advent calendar tutorial and leftover clothespins from my push-pin tutorial.

Spray paint some clothes pins. I used chalkboard paint because that’s what I had, but you could also use flat black. The chalkboard aspect of it doesn’t make a difference.

 

 
Next, I had a pack of school themed scrapbook paper leftover from teacher appreciation last year. This is a pack of 5×7 paper that I got from Michael’s. I used these thumbtacks, which originally came from Walmart.
 
 

After the paint is dry, cut paper to fit the front and back of the clips. I used some spray Elmer’s adhesive that I had, but ended up having to use hot glue in some spots. I also used some matte spray poly on top of the paper once the glue had dried. Once everything is dry, hot glue the tack to the back at the top.
 
 
I didn’t want the pins to poke anyone through the bags (Michael’s), so I cut a piece of foam core board that would fit inside the bag. Cut the foam core board at least 1/2″ smaller than the width of the bag so that everything will fit nicely.
 
 I covered the piece of foam core board in some paper to give it a finished look. I cut a small piece of paper and clipped all of the pins to it at the bottom to keep them from moving around in the bags.
 

Finally, I used my tag punch, some black card stock, and a white colored pencil to make the tags.
 
 

The only thing I would’ve done differently is to write the teachers’ names on the solid black clip with a white paint pen. But since I was restricting myself to materials I already had, I didn’t do it.
 
By the way, middle schoolers are too cool to hand their teachers gifts on the first day of school. So I will be giving these to his teachers at Open House. 😉 I have his permission. LOL. He just can’t be seen doing the deed himself. My 3rd grader on the other hand was happy to play Back to School Santa.
 
Enjoy! Please, please “pin” and share.
XOXO,
Abby
 



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