We are genetically unsuited for crafting. Hailing from a direct line of butchers, coal miners, milkmen and telephone linemen, we come from people whose strong hands wrapped comfortably around cleavers, chisels, steel and spikes.
We’ve neither the patience nor the daintiness necessary for beautiful scrapbooking, embroidery or etching.
My sweet little niece and I once aborted the mission midway through painting a plate for her mom because I could not execute a proper hand print and she really wanted to go to the park.
So, when Molly and I heard ourselves volunteering to make gift baskets for a giant family reunion, our eyes met in perfect telepathy.
“What are we thinking?”
But, thanks to the generously stocked Hobby Lobby shelves, a little bit of teamwork, and a fond appreciation for our home state, we put together a decent display.
Oh, there were detours — who knew it would be so difficult to peel the back off double-sided tape?
And the enormous batch of granola we baked yielded pretty skimpy bags once we divided it 19 ways.
But, overall, we’re pretty happy with the little bags we put together because one thing we did learn from our Eastern European grandparents is this: food is love.
Dobar Tek!
This is my loot from Hobby Lobby. I spent an embarrassing amount of time wandering through the store evaluating all the cool, crafty merchandise. These items, especially the tulip muffin liners, delighted me..I can’t tell you how tedious the whole sticking the front label on the bag process was. I ditched the double-sided tape in favor of mounting strips on a tip from my crafty friend Beth. Honestly, though, this was still pretty boring. Four tabs per 19 bags. Yawnsville.Our first purchase for our Wisconsin gift basket was these newly bottled six-packs of Brandy Old Fashioned Sweet, a purely Wisconsin drink. Bottoms up!Here are those cute little tulip liners in action. I’m pulling them out again for my niece’s birthday. They’re that cute.So, I made a bunch of chocolate chip banana muffins, but I ran short so I whipped up a quick batch of blueberry muffins. I cellophaned two with a little raffia tie and voilà.These little packets of Door County Cherry granola are pretty skimpy, but Great Grandpa Vince and Great Grandma Mary had 17 grandchildren and that’s a lot of granola!Well, of course we added some good old Wisconsin cheese!Molly made toffee and wrote a cool welcome note and here you have it: Dobar Tek! (This is Croatian for Enjoy!)
Seeing the end result, I would never have known you two weren’t crafty. I am also very uncrafty. Maybe we should start a club. We could get together and not make anything. 🙂
It’s amazing how something that seems like a small task, can turn into a huge project! The end product looks great, and I love the cows! I MUST have them!!!!
Great job ladies!!
Thanks Kathryn. We probably should have included some Starbucks coffee:)
Thanks Kathryn!
Seeing the end result, I would never have known you two weren’t crafty. I am also very uncrafty. Maybe we should start a club. We could get together and not make anything. 🙂
I’d be all over a club like that.
It’s amazing how something that seems like a small task, can turn into a huge project! The end product looks great, and I love the cows! I MUST have them!!!!
The mounting tape was pretty tedious, but the cows were fun. Thanks for stopping by the blog