getting a head start on christmas

I went shopping on Friday. And I survived. My ride arrived at my door, special purse in hand (ha ha), at 3:45 am. First stop, Target. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice people were at that hour of the day. The line wove in and out of the health and beauty aisles, and went rather quickly. Next up, Kohl's. I guess since it opened at 3, most of the people were gone from there by 4:30. There was harly even a line. Then it was on to Fred Meijer for the 1/2 off socks deal, and, finally, Craft Warehouse. I got home around 11:30. That's the longest I've gone shopping in a long time, but oh, the bargains.

I also worked on finishing up and shipping out the box of Christmas goodness for my sister and her family. The fun begins for them on the 1st of December, and it's an Advent-countdown to Christmas type of thing. It's so cool. I'll share more on that later this week. And last night I whipped up about 12 of these invitations for a cookie exchange I'm hosting in December. I've always wanted to do this, and never have. But this is the year. And I'm doing it.

I used kraft paper as my base and used the SEI Christmas paper and some random matching polka dots for the background. I looked for dimensional cookie stickers everywhere, but couldn't find any. Then I stumbled upon these gingerbread man buttons and they're perfect. My inspiration came from this easy sketch. I thought they turned out super cute.