My adorable friend Mary of Sweetpeas and Snapshots and the lovely Tricia of Vintage Bliss will be hosting a Gypsy Boheme Voyage this weekend. Ever so sweet Mr. Decor gifted me with an early birthday gift and I will be attending this fabulous soiree in Santa Monica along with nine other lucky ladies.
As I will be staying overnight in Mary's fabulous bungalow I wanted to bring along a hostess gift. I then decided I would also bring a swap gift for all of the other attendees. Trying to stick to my current goal of not purchasing anything else until I whittle down my craft and gift closet I had to put on my thinking cap. I began with the bags. I have stacks of really nice paper shoppers. Do you?
Here's the lineup.
Each bag is a wee bit different.
Ah, I feel happy just looking at them.
Inside each swap bag is a one of a kind vintage styled hair comb made by yours truly, a bag of boardwalk themed candy and a tin of various embellishments they can use on their Boheme creations or save for another project.
I always make one to two more bags than what I need. You never know if an extra person might attend or a perfect stranger will do something fabulous for you. If an extra bag comes home with me it will then be time for a summer giveaway. (Fingers crossed.)
As I will be staying overnight in Mary's fabulous bungalow I wanted to bring along a hostess gift. I then decided I would also bring a swap gift for all of the other attendees. Trying to stick to my current goal of not purchasing anything else until I whittle down my craft and gift closet I had to put on my thinking cap. I began with the bags. I have stacks of really nice paper shoppers. Do you?
Digging further into my closet I found a stack of pretty tissue paper and some matching raffia. It made me think of summer. This led to my second source of inspiration. One of my favorite vintage advertising artists was Gil Elvgren. He was a prolific painter whose hey day was in the 1940's and 50's. I selected several of his bathing beauty images and printed a few in various sizes off of my computer. Continuing my search through my craft stash I found some vintage sequins, an endless supply of punched confetti, and my favorite glitter glue ~ stickles. The piece de resistance was the "Free Admission~ Crazyworld" tickets I had been saving for "something special". Lastly, I found 10 old locker key tags with various numbers.
The theme of a Vintage Boardwalk Holiday was solidified.
As I only had 10 locker key tags and I needed 12 finished bags, I decided to string a shell instead of a tag onto the two hostess bags. Not a bad transformation, but they are so much prettier in person.
Here's the lineup.
Each bag is a wee bit different.
It's called creative license. (A fancy way of saying that there was not enough of any one material to make identical bags. :)
I left an open space on the upper right hand side of each bag so that each attendee could write their name on their bag.
Ah, I feel happy just looking at them.
Inside each swap bag is a one of a kind vintage styled hair comb made by yours truly, a bag of boardwalk themed candy and a tin of various embellishments they can use on their Boheme creations or save for another project.
I always make one to two more bags than what I need. You never know if an extra person might attend or a perfect stranger will do something fabulous for you. If an extra bag comes home with me it will then be time for a summer giveaway. (Fingers crossed.)
Friday's post will feature a few little extra gifts I have made for my hostess.
