Two Tips Tuesday

Tip #1: A Prayer or Thankfulness Tree

Deck my blog with holiday fuuuuuuuuuuuun...fa lalalala la la laaaa
All my tips will be like this till the New Year...fa la la la la la la laaaaaaaaaaaa!

OK. Lame song. But the holidays are officially here and there are so many goodies we can do with the rest of the tips in 2009. I will challenge myself to do just that!

A prayer or thankfulness tree, you ask? This is not a new idea but I love that so many people do this each year. It is simply just a tree with leaves that say what the person is thankful for or prayers written on each leaf to pray for during the holiday season. BFF has one in her entry that is kind of like a guest book which is so nice. It is a paint drawn tree on paper and she has a bowl of leaves for each person to fill out and hang on the tree. I have always wanted to get a tree branch from outside and make it into a mini tree and hang reusable leaves on them. That has been my plan for 2 years and I still have not done it.

More inspiration...

• Set a pretty bowl on the table with several cut out leaves or buy the ones in packages at the store to write out your thankful notes.
• A unique and different idea...a girlfriend and I were designated to decorate for a baby shower for a dear friend of ours and we filled a glass vase full of brown river rocks. We had each guest sign their name and write an attribute of our friend on that rock.
• Make a large, paper tree for the fridge, cut out paper covered magnets in tree shapes, color, and write them out during the whole month of November until Thanksgiving.
• Postpone this idea until Christmas, have a tabletop tree and write out prayers or the things you consider in life to be a precious gift. Write them on ornaments to hang on the tree.

Tip #2: Photo Gift Tags for Tots

I love wrapping gifts. My mother always made them look BEAUTIFUL and about killed herself doing it each year. But one thing I have learned is to simplify this season as much as possible. I used to do fancy bows and gifts tags. The whole shebang. But the first time I saw Cati tear into a gift and not notice one thing about the nifty little bow or how I uniquely offset the ribbon on the top, I knew things would change. My efforts were utterly ignored and I realized...WHO CARES? But I still have to be me so it needs to look cute.

This year I want Cati to have lots of fun and be a Christmas helper to hand out all the gifts. I initially thought I would designate a particular wrapping paper for each of us but then I realized that might not go well with what I purchased during last years after Christmas sale. What if there is ONE, lonely gift that has random paper? It would drive me into bouts of insomnia.

So I decided to make photo gift tags. That way, Cati could look at it and know who's gift it is and feel involved. It also may help prevent her from tearing into all the other gifts. I went to Walgreen's, chose photos and had them printed in black and white, and wallet size to give me four pictures per sheet. Then I mounted them on paper, hole punched the corner and wrapped it with ribbon. Here are a few I have already wrapped for the girls...

Happy Tuesday Friends!