Birthday presents: wrap it up!

Now that Monika's birthday has come and gone--it happens so quickly--it's time for the gift/craft run-down. I still have a couple little things in the mix that will, hopefully, travel with me to Burbank in several weeks, but for the moment I'd like to focus on what I actually put in a box and sent to my dear sister. So, part one of three parts...

I'm a big proponent of finding uses for interesting bits of packaging (recycling!), so I dug out a couple of cool gift receptacles for Monika's presents.

The gray and white box formerly housed a little owl tray by Fringe Studio (which has loads of delicate and curious treasures in seriously cool packaging). I covered the sticker on the front with a Martha Stewart label and the sticker in the back, which would not allow itself to be removed for anything, was covered with a little gift card.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy! (In the living room, Matilda just sneezed. She's lazing in the window--we have sunlight today!) The second packaging element once held a Liberty of London for Target candle (which, sadly, no longer exists, but you can view Liberty products here. The fabrics are especially beautiful!) and had such a swell floral design that I set it on my bookshelf for a couple months before the perfect occasion arose.

Honestly, I have no clue where these stickers came from, but I found them in my desk drawer and they fit the top of the candle box perfectly. It was, as you might imagine, quite the fortuitous discovery. I believe I wrote sweets for the sweet on the label. Alas, no picture exists--a fact which is probably not alas worthy.

And just what did this decorative cylinder contain?

An assortment of chocolates from local chocolatier Spokandy! (I had a Groupon. What's a Groupon? Follow this link to sign up.) Dark chocolate coconut haystacks, milk chocolate cashew clusters, and milk chocolate caramels with cinnamon (which are absolutely bomb).

Also from Spokandy: Murphys. I don't know what these are exactly (some type of vanilla marshmallow thing with coconut and chocolate), but Monika classified them as balls. As in: Ben and I split a ball.

Here they are all wrapped up in tissue paper, ready to send you into a sugar coma. Coming up tomorrow: more birthday treats!