Most Wonderful Time...

 Ok so remember that gift for my MIL? We decided to do a dual frame and on one side will be the Poem and the other side will be a picture! The frame is intended to hold the wedding invitation and a photo so this will be perfect. We couldn't decide on a photo from the wedding and since we've both lost a little weight since then anyways, we decided mom would love a recent picture so we had a photo shoot at home. Only bad part was we couldn't find anything tall/short enough to set the camera on get our full bodies in the shot - This is where we would have LOVED to have a tripod. SO maybe we'll put that on our gift list for 2013 :-) Until then - here is my favorite shot.

And here's the picture we're sending to Mom.
We have at least 5 that are this same pose - tough to get the smiles right :-)

And here's the gift for mom - 

So for mailing I left it in the BBB box and realized I needed something to pad it with and we don't keep bubble wrap around. So I go around the house and initially I was going wrap it in some t-shirts or a sweater or something. Then I didn't want to send something ugly or old... SO I checked in my  canvas storage basket filled with misc items and wouldn't ya know - I had this padded shelf liner and wrapped it around the frame, managed to get it in a usps box and it's off! And somehow even though I just sent it yesterday afternoon, it's supposed to make it to Nashville on Saturday! We know mom will love this gift. We only wish we could be there when she opens it! 

The biggest problem I found doing this very simple gift is the printing of the poem. Why? That should be simple right? Well it's easier if you're a scrapbooker and you have a handy Cricut and the colorful paper and all the goodies (I'm a bit jealous of my scrapping friends who do have all this!) Initially I was going to use white paper and colored fonts with a colored background but I needed it printed on card stock (didn't want it to be flimsy). So off to Fedex I went. Once there I realized that it was ridiculous to buy 20 sheets of pretty card stock for $4. I went back to the computer and realized I could use Power Point! I didn't experiment as much as I would have liked as I was paying 30cents a min but it came out nice. It's a damask background, dark grey almost black with white letters. And a script font. I love it and using power point also made me realize that all those printable's I see and LOVE on Pinterest I could make myself using Power Point. This is the one I'm putting up for Christmas

I will be printing it (with silver background) along with the ones I've chosen for Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's day, Spring, Summer and Fall. (I have a table in our entryway I will be decorating around each of these!) At Fedex for about 30 cents each. Which is cheaper than paying to download some of these and using my own paper and ink at home! 

Pictures to come!