<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" media="screen" href="/~d/styles/atom10full.xsl"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0" gd:etag="W/&quot;D0ADR3c-fyp7ImA9WhVbEEs.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946</id><updated>2012-05-26T13:56:16.957-07:00</updated><category term="Pay it Forward" /><category term="Gifted Readers" /><category term="Gift bags" /><category term="Gift wrapping food" /><category term="Green gift wrapping" /><category term="Recycled" /><category term="Japanese Culture" /><category term="Cloth" /><category term="Family" /><category term="Furoshiki" /><category term="Multiple shapes" /><category term="Gift wrapping techniques" /><category term="-Baby Showers" /><category term="Inspired By" /><category term="Imaginary Tweets" /><category term="Spiritual" /><category term="From nature" /><category term="Wrapping paper" /><category term="Gift tags" /><category term="Tutorials" /><category term="Manly gift wrapping" /><category term="Traveling with gifts" /><category term="Other" /><category term="-Father's Day" /><category term="-Valentine's Day" /><category term="Cards" /><category term="On blogging" /><category term="Product Feature" /><category term="Gift Wrapping Arsenal" /><category term="Book" /><category term="Free printables" /><category term="Common Thread Studio" /><category term="Tissue paper" /><category term="-Christmas" /><category term="Mailing gifts" /><category term="Box" /><category term="Why We Make" /><category term="-Kid-related" /><category term="5 Minute Upgrade" /><category term="Wrapping non-material gifts" /><category term="Handmade love" /><category term="-Weddings" /><category term="Japanese washi tape" /><category term="-Birthdays" /><category term="Wrap Story" /><category term="Gift boxes" /><category term="Tutorial Tryout" /><category term="-Bridal Showers" /><category term="Cylindrical" /><category term="Gift card" /><category term="Clothes" /><category term="Reader Questions" /><category term="Gift Wrap Everywhere" /><category term="Workshops" /><category term="Flat" /><category term="Global gift wrapping" /><category term="Gift toppers" /><category term="Reusable" /><category term="Bottle" /><category term="Gift wrapping in bulk" /><category term="-Mother's Day" /><title>The Gifted Blog</title><subtitle type="html">Fresh, thoughtful, and green gift wrapping ideas</subtitle><link rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/posts/default" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/" /><link rel="next" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25&amp;redirect=false&amp;v=2" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><generator version="7.00" uri="http://www.blogger.com">Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>415</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" /><feedburner:info uri="blogspot/ztxf" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><feedburner:emailServiceId>blogspot/ZtXF</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://feedburner.google.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DkMFRH8yeSp7ImA9WhVUF0o.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-6059278268216531016</id><published>2012-05-23T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-23T05:00:15.191-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-23T05:00:15.191-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tissue paper" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tutorials" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Recycled" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Green gift wrapping" /><title>Beet Dyed Gift Wrap | Tutorial</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
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Would you have ever guessed these were dyed with beets? Give plain tissue paper a little zip by using natural dye to color it!&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PfRPGu6cO8o/TAXVJV7jI2I/AAAAAAAALx8/YoLey5AC0lg/s1600/P1070760.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PfRPGu6cO8o/TAXVJV7jI2I/AAAAAAAALx8/YoLey5AC0lg/s500/P1070760.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;u&gt;Materials:&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
- 2-4 beets&lt;br /&gt;
- White tissue paper&lt;br /&gt;
- Paintbrush (optional)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We've been using a &lt;a href="http://www.abundantharvestorganics.com/"&gt;wonderful service&lt;/a&gt; to get a box of organic produce a couple times a month.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VmiVrGfTVVI/TZKum7Fb9pI/AAAAAAAANTw/2c7eIwepAnc/s1600/IMG_0347.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VmiVrGfTVVI/TZKum7Fb9pI/AAAAAAAANTw/2c7eIwepAnc/s500/IMG_0347.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Each box is a surprise, and we've learned to cook with several unfamiliar veggies because of it. That learning curve resulted in this happy accident of a tutorial!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJ2FhP-bxEg/TZKunhIBxrI/AAAAAAAANT4/zQIlihogLtY/s1600/IMG_0350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJ2FhP-bxEg/TZKunhIBxrI/AAAAAAAANT4/zQIlihogLtY/s500/IMG_0350.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Cook beets with &lt;a href="http://www.yumsugar.com/Roasted-Beets-3208635"&gt;this recipe&lt;/a&gt;. It's not hard - put the beets in a covered baking dish with a little water and bake until tender. When they are done, they will be sitting in the most gorgeous pool of jewel-colored liquid. Pour liquid into small container.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lAVE5TjpKtk/TAXVD2b93_I/AAAAAAAALxg/soVwMApjcrY/s1600/P1070706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lAVE5TjpKtk/TAXVD2b93_I/AAAAAAAALxg/soVwMApjcrY/s500/P1070706.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Chop stems off and reserve.&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rvp_VnrOR6E/TAXVGI5KaVI/AAAAAAAALxs/plWvGjhLQnA/s1600/P1070711.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Rvp_VnrOR6E/TAXVGI5KaVI/AAAAAAAALxs/plWvGjhLQnA/s500/P1070711.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Placing a couple sheets of tissue paper onto a baking pan, use the beet tops to stamp the paper with natural dye. When finished, carefully lift off and dry undisturbed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E8HIbdE0n00/TAXVFVq7ldI/AAAAAAAALxo/BGDnXTqcMZs/s1600/P1070710.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E8HIbdE0n00/TAXVFVq7ldI/AAAAAAAALxo/BGDnXTqcMZs/s500/P1070710.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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You can also use a paintbrush to paint patterns, or even fold and dip whole sheets into the beet dye.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AAOjgMyJEyo/TAXVHITaYZI/AAAAAAAALxw/z1nr7iRve4E/s1600/P1070755.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AAOjgMyJEyo/TAXVHITaYZI/AAAAAAAALxw/z1nr7iRve4E/s500/P1070755.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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After some of the sheets dried I added another layer of color (see dots below).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VDx5H9saPr0/TAXVIqWd-LI/AAAAAAAALx4/jHI2SMmQROc/s1600/P1070758.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VDx5H9saPr0/TAXVIqWd-LI/AAAAAAAALx4/jHI2SMmQROc/s500/P1070758.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2h3P-dKzVYI/TsIP3fH2KzI/AAAAAAAAODA/DgDvCj3s1Lc/s1600/IMG_2599.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2h3P-dKzVYI/TsIP3fH2KzI/AAAAAAAAODA/DgDvCj3s1Lc/s500/IMG_2599.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;
I think the pieces of tissue that were folded and dipped came out the best (shown with a &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2011/12/powder-puff-gift-topper-tutorial.html"&gt;Powder Puff Gift Topper&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;below). I love where the paper got really saturated with color! What's funny is that these were used, crumply pieces of tissue - but the wrinkles gave it dimension.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IxAYpg6uh2k/TsIP4PYcLsI/AAAAAAAAODE/9QdcFn2kkak/s1600/IMG_2601.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IxAYpg6uh2k/TsIP4PYcLsI/AAAAAAAAODE/9QdcFn2kkak/s500/IMG_2601.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Tip: If you find the color isn't as intense as you'd like, simmer the beet dye on the stove until reduced by one half.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ELGOITypnEU/TsIP6wB2tFI/AAAAAAAAODU/66VbfmjOO7E/s1600/IMG_2609.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ELGOITypnEU/TsIP6wB2tFI/AAAAAAAAODU/66VbfmjOO7E/s500/IMG_2609.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
What do you think? Hope you have so much fun with this one!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EWH2qsNoHPU/TsIP5cN-UKI/AAAAAAAAODM/W1gv631BpX8/s1600/IMG_2605.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EWH2qsNoHPU/TsIP5cN-UKI/AAAAAAAAODM/W1gv631BpX8/s500/IMG_2605.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/s0ZsRr1-WZs" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/6059278268216531016/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/beet-dyed-gift-wrap-tutorial.html#comment-form" title="12 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6059278268216531016?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6059278268216531016?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/s0ZsRr1-WZs/beet-dyed-gift-wrap-tutorial.html" title="Beet Dyed Gift Wrap | Tutorial" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PfRPGu6cO8o/TAXVJV7jI2I/AAAAAAAALx8/YoLey5AC0lg/s72-c/P1070760.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>12</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/beet-dyed-gift-wrap-tutorial.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CEIHRnkyeSp7ImA9WhVUFkk.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-6562732184409050909</id><published>2012-05-21T11:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-21T16:22:17.791-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-21T16:22:17.791-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Imaginary Tweets" /><title>Imaginary Tweets: Hint, Hint Edition</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VmiVrGfTVVI/TZKum7Fb9pI/AAAAAAAANTw/2c7eIwepAnc/s1600/IMG_0347.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VmiVrGfTVVI/TZKum7Fb9pI/AAAAAAAANTw/2c7eIwepAnc/s500/IMG_0347.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Coming this week - a tutorial! Can you take a stab at what it'll be from the picture?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
G found an unopened tub of cottage cheese in his closet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I feel lost when it comes to home decorating and appreciated &lt;a href="http://blog.justinablakeney.com/2012/05/collected-walls-affordable-gallery-for.html"&gt;this tip&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I got my first white hair...on the tip of my eyebrow.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Thinking about getting &lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002N2R5TM/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=thegifblo-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B002N2R5TM"&gt;this scooter&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;for N as a big brother gift when baby comes. Our neighbors have one and he loves it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Honestly, he's not that excited for the baby. Anyone else go through this w/ their firstborn? Are we in for trouble?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/hXw72_oI7Rk" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/6562732184409050909/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/imaginary-tweets-hint-hint-edition.html#comment-form" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6562732184409050909?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6562732184409050909?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/hXw72_oI7Rk/imaginary-tweets-hint-hint-edition.html" title="Imaginary Tweets: Hint, Hint Edition" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VmiVrGfTVVI/TZKum7Fb9pI/AAAAAAAANTw/2c7eIwepAnc/s72-c/IMG_0347.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/imaginary-tweets-hint-hint-edition.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;Ak8EQ3k5fCp7ImA9WhVUFE8.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-1582829393838333647</id><published>2012-05-19T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-19T05:00:02.724-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-19T05:00:02.724-07:00</app:edited><title>Proposal Stories?</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jVwMfZZND3M/T7a66orhFFI/AAAAAAAAOs0/5GSnIjSq0lI/s1600/proposal%2Bstories.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jVwMfZZND3M/T7a66orhFFI/AAAAAAAAOs0/5GSnIjSq0lI/s1600/proposal%2Bstories.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
If you've been a reader for long, you probably know how much I enjoy gift wrapping and encouraging others towards everyday creativity. The Gifted Blog is my labor of love, my side hustle, my creative outlet. As I slowly work toward the goal of turning the blog into an &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2010/05/i-passed-google-adsense-threshold.html"&gt;income stream&lt;/a&gt;, I've had different opportunities to earn money from blogging - some made total sense, some were a bad fit. I'm doing my best to follow my instincts so I can proceed with integrity.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I have the opportunity to work with a jewelry company to write an upcoming post and would love your help! The topic is engagement rings, and I thought it would be fun to come up with a list of unique ways to gift wrap (or otherwise present) an engagement ring.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Do you have any fun ideas for gift wrapping an engagement ring? Or, if you're engaged or married, did your proposal involve any interesting trappings for the ring? I would love to hear.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/vqYl_vyTVSA" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/1582829393838333647/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/proposal-stories.html#comment-form" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/1582829393838333647?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/1582829393838333647?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/vqYl_vyTVSA/proposal-stories.html" title="Proposal Stories?" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jVwMfZZND3M/T7a66orhFFI/AAAAAAAAOs0/5GSnIjSq0lI/s72-c/proposal%2Bstories.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/proposal-stories.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;C0IBRnczeSp7ImA9WhVUE0U.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-7615006163179577050</id><published>2012-05-18T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-18T15:52:37.981-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-18T15:52:37.981-07:00</app:edited><title>Corinna Wraps | Sponsor Hello</title><content type="html">There aren't many of us blogging our hearts out over gift wrapping, but Corinna vanGerwen of &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/"&gt;Corinna Wraps&lt;/a&gt; is one of them. She's a freelance writer, editor, and stylist in Toronto, Canada who loves making beautiful packages.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c1enCtyFv6w/T6RbNbTu5lI/AAAAAAAAOqE/ziwTL7rk0hM/s1600/flower+feather+gift+topper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c1enCtyFv6w/T6RbNbTu5lI/AAAAAAAAOqE/ziwTL7rk0hM/s500/flower+feather+gift+topper.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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From the &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/monday-morning-gift-16/"&gt;lush, feather-topped gift&lt;/a&gt; above to the &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/diy-colour-burst-gift-tags/"&gt;vibrant color-burst gift tags&lt;/a&gt; below, I really appreciate Corinna's gift wrapping aesthetic. She's able to create luxe-looking gifts that maintain a modern look.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fF8FNA8-QAU/T6RbOCL2mZI/AAAAAAAAOqU/pOX7imc8VQo/s1600/diy+gift+wrapping+idea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fF8FNA8-QAU/T6RbOCL2mZI/AAAAAAAAOqU/pOX7imc8VQo/s500/diy+gift+wrapping+idea.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Corinna highlights &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/category/shopping-products/"&gt;gift wrapping supplies&lt;/a&gt; to buy and has been building an impressive collection of &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/category/gift-wrapping-basics/"&gt;gift wrapping tips and tricks&lt;/a&gt; to learn from. (Some of these, seriously, look like they came from Real Simple or Martha Stewart.) I signed up for her &lt;a href="http://www.corinnavangerwen.com/2011/11/30/corinnas-gift-wrapping-newsletter/"&gt;newsletter&lt;/a&gt; to get a little creative gift wrapping goodness delivered to my inbox.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pRyThscc6oY/T6RbNw_K1yI/AAAAAAAAOqI/LrLRlliic28/s1600/fresh+flowers+gift+wrapping+idea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pRyThscc6oY/T6RbNw_K1yI/AAAAAAAAOqI/LrLRlliic28/s500/fresh+flowers+gift+wrapping+idea.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Personally, I enjoy seeing how gift wrapping is truly a personal creative expression - we blog about the same passion, but I'm always finding new things to admire and learn from in Corinna's work!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To see more, visit:&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/"&gt;Corinna Wraps Blog&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.corinnavangerwen.com/2011/11/30/corinnas-gift-wrapping-newsletter/"&gt;Newsletter&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.corinnavangerwen.com/2011/09/16/gift-wrapping-workshops/"&gt;Workshops&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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{Images by Corinna vanGerwen of &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/"&gt;Corinna Wraps&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/monday-morning-gift-16/"&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/diy-colour-burst-gift-tags/"&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href="http://corinnawraps.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/7-green-gift-wrapping-ideas/"&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-7615006163179577050?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/qxDnnD27gW8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/7615006163179577050/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/corinna-wraps-sponsor-hello.html#comment-form" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/7615006163179577050?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/7615006163179577050?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/qxDnnD27gW8/corinna-wraps-sponsor-hello.html" title="Corinna Wraps | Sponsor Hello" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c1enCtyFv6w/T6RbNbTu5lI/AAAAAAAAOqE/ziwTL7rk0hM/s72-c/flower+feather+gift+topper.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/corinna-wraps-sponsor-hello.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;A0EER3s5eCp7ImA9WhVUEUs.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-4814410013529627339</id><published>2012-05-16T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-16T05:00:06.520-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-16T05:00:06.520-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Why We Make" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Gift boxes" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Global gift wrapping" /><title>Cajas de Vlad | Why We Make</title><content type="html">&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;I  write The Gifted Blog because I love to create. I've been reflecting on  what it means to love making things. I hope this  series will be a jumping-off point for thoughtful discussion among us. For the whole series,&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Why%20We%20Make" style="text-decoration: none;"&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zTVkAKmpG1Y/T6DDyVYkJAI/AAAAAAAAOpQ/G5ekl3V0z24/s1600/reusable+gift+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zTVkAKmpG1Y/T6DDyVYkJAI/AAAAAAAAOpQ/G5ekl3V0z24/s500/reusable+gift+box.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
There are many different answers to the question, "Why do we create?" But one of them has got to be - &lt;i&gt;we just can't help it&lt;/i&gt;. When reader Vlad wrote to me from Caracas, Venezuela, I couldn't help smile at his story. I think it perfectly exemplifies that &lt;i&gt;I can't help it!&lt;/i&gt; aspect of creating. But before you read further, check out his &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.202008866485695.49532.202004709819444&amp;amp;type=3"&gt;album of gift boxes&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XWTlc1hONJE/T6DDxXvYSyI/AAAAAAAAOpA/Pr-K4PDbIFo/s1600/DIY+gift+boxes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XWTlc1hONJE/T6DDxXvYSyI/AAAAAAAAOpA/Pr-K4PDbIFo/s500/DIY+gift+boxes.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Wild, right? There are 150+ photos of boxes that Vlad has lovingly covered with wrapping paper. He writes:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote class="tr_bq"&gt;
The story of my boxes is a long one. About 15 years ago, I  started collecting the used cardboard for storyboards before it got to  the garbage (I was at the creative department of an advertising agency).  I made the boxes from scratch... but it took me about a week to make one in my spare time after work. Why did I start making boxes? Because I didn't like all that  material going to waste after so little use.&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;blockquote class="tr_bq"&gt;
Years later I found a  place where they make &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard"&gt;mdf&lt;/a&gt; boxes, and it hit me that I could use  all the wrapping paper that I had left over the years to go back to  handcrafts again, and so I did. It relaxes me a lot, and there's a lot  of satisfaction from the feedback I get.&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2rU7gpDhaDw/T6DDypr2BhI/AAAAAAAAOpY/15uEynvbpNo/s1600/reusable+gift+boxes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2rU7gpDhaDw/T6DDypr2BhI/AAAAAAAAOpY/15uEynvbpNo/s500/reusable+gift+boxes.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Vlad sells his boxes - last year an edition of 85(!) - and gives them as gifts, especially around Christmas. This year he wants to do even more and started making boxes in March to ramp up his production for Cajas de Vlad (Vlad's Boxes).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
One thing I really enjoy about Vlad's story is how he wanted to make something beautiful with material that was about to go to waste. It reminds me of one of the&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2009/12/inspired-by-how-to-wrap-five-more-eggs.html"&gt;lineages of Japanese packaging&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;described in the book&amp;nbsp;&lt;i&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RBBGN2/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B000RBBGN2"&gt;How to Wrap Five More Eggs&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/i&gt;You look at what is in abundance around you, which is perhaps even waste material, as the inspiration for your wrapping.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o2PaArMdrSk/T6DDx5sm5TI/AAAAAAAAOpI/W4k4MXhFn64/s1600/paper+covered+gift+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o2PaArMdrSk/T6DDx5sm5TI/AAAAAAAAOpI/W4k4MXhFn64/s500/paper+covered+gift+box.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I also like that Vlad's inspiration came while on the job. Many of us are working jobs that help pay the bills but don't necessarily satisfy our desires as creative people. I'm inspired by the way that Vlad's specific brand of creativity found its way into the office. Do you recognize yourself in this aspect of his story? (Reminds me of&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TO6DN2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B003TO6DN2"&gt;this book&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;I came across many years ago.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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{Images by &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.202008866485695.49532.202004709819444&amp;amp;type=3"&gt;Vlad Carvajal Crespo&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;via &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/cajasdevlad"&gt;Cajas de Vlad&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-4814410013529627339?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/H2ELR818a2g" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/4814410013529627339/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/cajas-de-vlad-why-we-make.html#comment-form" title="6 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/4814410013529627339?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/4814410013529627339?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/H2ELR818a2g/cajas-de-vlad-why-we-make.html" title="Cajas de Vlad | Why We Make" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zTVkAKmpG1Y/T6DDyVYkJAI/AAAAAAAAOpQ/G5ekl3V0z24/s72-c/reusable+gift+box.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>6</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/cajas-de-vlad-why-we-make.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DE8ER3g_eSp7ImA9WhVVGUQ.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-4174174586316804296</id><published>2012-05-14T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-14T05:00:06.641-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-14T05:00:06.641-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Bottle" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Gift wrapping food" /><title>Dressed Up Drinks Roundup</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Myxc9JT-isI/T08NUjCIeEI/AAAAAAAAObE/lCPzhthCpHM/s1600/gift+wrapping+idea+for+drinks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Myxc9JT-isI/T08NUjCIeEI/AAAAAAAAObE/lCPzhthCpHM/s1600/gift+wrapping+idea+for+drinks.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Perhaps not all of these &lt;i&gt;strictly &lt;/i&gt;count as gift wrapping, but when I started collecting ideas for dressing up paper cups and drink&amp;nbsp;bottles, I couldn't resist sharing them with you. I'd love to receive a set of the cups above and some Martinelli's as a party gift. Bottoms up!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.scout-holiday.com/blog/?p=2607"&gt;Washi tape + wine&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;at Scout-Holiday (via &lt;a href="http://thecraftsdept.marthastewart.com/2011/06/tape-embellishments.html"&gt;the crafts dept.&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://ohhappyday.com/2012/02/stamped-party-cups/"&gt;Stamped party cups&lt;/a&gt; at Oh Happy Day&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.spiffypress.com/odds-ends-winewraps.html"&gt;Letterpress wine bottle wraps&lt;/a&gt; by Spiffy Press&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://asubtlerevelry.com/gilded-bottles"&gt;Gilded bottles&lt;/a&gt; at A Subtle Revelry&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.designsponge.com/2011/04/diy-project-painterly-party-cups.html"&gt;Painterly party cups&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;at DesignSponge (shown above)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Image via &lt;a href="http://www.designsponge.com/2011/04/diy-project-painterly-party-cups.html"&gt;DesignSponge&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-4174174586316804296?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/ea5I7bogbv0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/4174174586316804296/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/dressed-up-drinks-roundup.html#comment-form" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/4174174586316804296?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/4174174586316804296?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/ea5I7bogbv0/dressed-up-drinks-roundup.html" title="Dressed Up Drinks Roundup" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Myxc9JT-isI/T08NUjCIeEI/AAAAAAAAObE/lCPzhthCpHM/s72-c/gift+wrapping+idea+for+drinks.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/dressed-up-drinks-roundup.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUEEQ3w5cCp7ImA9WhVVF04.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-3926199834360627787</id><published>2012-05-11T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-11T05:00:02.228-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-11T05:00:02.228-07:00</app:edited><title>Paper Tiger Shanghai | Sponsor Hello</title><content type="html">Today I'm excited to introduce you to a new sponsor: &lt;a href="http://www.papertigershanghai.com/"&gt;Paper Tiger Shanghai&lt;/a&gt;. I reached out to the owner of this fabulous small business because I thought her recycled gift wrap would be a great fit with the blog.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YMnaZG6Hmg8/T30lnhCVDcI/AAAAAAAAOhg/xImLjR4Pv4U/s1600/gift+wrapping+paper+tiger+shanghai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YMnaZG6Hmg8/T30lnhCVDcI/AAAAAAAAOhg/xImLjR4Pv4U/s500/gift+wrapping+paper+tiger+shanghai.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Lucy Young, &lt;a href="http://www.papertigershanghai.com/"&gt;Paper Tiger Shanghai's&lt;/a&gt;
 owner and designer, is a Chinese-American entrepreneur who moved to Shanghai in 2005 with her family. When she looked for gift wrap in her new hometown, all she could find were designs that were very western. "The Chinese custom of gift wrapping is still fairly new," she writes, "It's more common to give money in red envelopes than to give a gift."&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Wanting contemporary gift wrap that reflected China's rich art and design history, Lucy set out to fill the niche herself. Paper Tiger Shanghai was born in 2007 and Lucy's paper is now sold in several shops in Shanghai and Beijing, and on &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/papertigerwrap"&gt;Etsy&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q5VoEtsdZ34/T30llFZhLfI/AAAAAAAAOhI/KvcsMxkLpJQ/s1600/gift+wrapping+paper+tiger+shanghai+ginkgo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q5VoEtsdZ34/T30llFZhLfI/AAAAAAAAOhI/KvcsMxkLpJQ/s500/gift+wrapping+paper+tiger+shanghai+ginkgo.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
I really love Lucy's story and the way she is bringing a Chinese aesthetic to a practice that is seen in China as western. You can see some gifts I wrapped in Paper Tiger paper &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2011/02/recycled-gift-wrap-from-paper-tiger.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. It's lovely.&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JZAUnmnZQ4Y/T30lmINF0uI/AAAAAAAAOhQ/bQCfcdRw0PM/s1600/gift+wrapping+paper+tiger+shanghai+hongbaos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JZAUnmnZQ4Y/T30lmINF0uI/AAAAAAAAOhQ/bQCfcdRw0PM/s500/gift+wrapping+paper+tiger+shanghai+hongbaos.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Please give Paper Tiger Shanghai a warm welcome and check out Lucy's work!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/papertigerwrap"&gt;Etsy&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.papertigershanghai.com/"&gt;| Website&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href="http://www.papertigershanghai.com/blog/"&gt;Blog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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{Images via &lt;a href="http://www.creativehunt.com/shanghai/articles/shanghai-papertiger-lucyyoung"&gt;Creative Hunt&lt;/a&gt; &amp;amp; Paper Tiger Shanghai: &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/89256152/new-red-dragon-gingko"&gt;2&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href="http://www.papertigershanghai.com/year-of-the-dragon/"&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-3926199834360627787?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/LcjeMAWDpXk" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/3926199834360627787/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/paper-tiger-shanghai-sponsor-hello.html#comment-form" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/3926199834360627787?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/3926199834360627787?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/LcjeMAWDpXk/paper-tiger-shanghai-sponsor-hello.html" title="Paper Tiger Shanghai | Sponsor Hello" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YMnaZG6Hmg8/T30lnhCVDcI/AAAAAAAAOhg/xImLjR4Pv4U/s72-c/gift+wrapping+paper+tiger+shanghai.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/paper-tiger-shanghai-sponsor-hello.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CEYFSHo7eyp7ImA9WhVVFk0.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-6803145926803785511</id><published>2012-05-09T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-09T15:21:59.403-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-09T15:21:59.403-07:00</app:edited><title>Michele Made Me | Sponsor Hello</title><content type="html">&lt;i&gt;You may have noticed after my &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/03/be-my-sponsor.html"&gt;call for sponsors&lt;/a&gt; that a handful of pretty ads have been added to the sidebar. Yay, new sponsors! I'm grateful to the women behind these businesses and blogs for sustaining my work here and am thrilled to brag about them.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you've never heard of &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/"&gt;Michele Made Me&lt;/a&gt;, I feel lucky to be the one to introduce you to my blog friend, new sponsor, and incredibly talented lady.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R0l2ZBnfcQs/T5sKOshg5BI/AAAAAAAAOnQ/r9SURksBK2c/s1600/recycled+juice+can+gift+wrapping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R0l2ZBnfcQs/T5sKOshg5BI/AAAAAAAAOnQ/r9SURksBK2c/s500/recycled+juice+can+gift+wrapping.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/p/tiny-brain-waves.html"&gt;Michele Pacey&lt;/a&gt; spends her days coaxing incredible creations out of materials saved from her recycling bin. See the pretty &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/2010/12/juicy-little-gift-boxes.html"&gt;gift box&lt;/a&gt; above? She made it from a juice concentrate container, vintage lace scrap, and flower crafted from a styrofoam tray. No joke.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0YIMm1TJIsk/T5sKNu1EUbI/AAAAAAAAOnA/xp-_t-Esc7o/s1600/Juice+container+Gift+box+pink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0YIMm1TJIsk/T5sKNu1EUbI/AAAAAAAAOnA/xp-_t-Esc7o/s500/Juice+container+Gift+box+pink.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Michele is one of the most prolific makers I know, and she is constantly challenging herself by working with new materials. See her turn an &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/search/label/old%20towel"&gt;old towel&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/search/label/junkmail"&gt;junk mail&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/search/label/toilet%20paper%20roll"&gt;toilet paper rolls&lt;/a&gt; into things of beauty. Or peek into her basement to see her impressive &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/2011/10/meet-my-dear-recyclables.html"&gt;stash of recyclables&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AwBlBoes7Jg/T5sRBpJaE-I/AAAAAAAAOnk/YeZqbKRWA-Y/s1600/Pink+Toilet+Paper+Roll+Thistle+Ornaments+on+table.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AwBlBoes7Jg/T5sRBpJaE-I/AAAAAAAAOnk/YeZqbKRWA-Y/s500/Pink+Toilet+Paper+Roll+Thistle+Ornaments+on+table.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Michele has also been building an impressive collection of &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/p/blog-page.html"&gt;downloadable tutorials&lt;/a&gt; in her shop, such as the one for the toilet paper roll thistle pictured above. I've been eyeing the juice cap ornament tutorial &amp;nbsp;for a while. I have too many caps and no idea what to do with them!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Help me thank Michele for her support and visit the links below!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/"&gt;Michele Made Me blog&lt;/a&gt; |&lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/p/blog-page.html"&gt; Michele Made Me Shop&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;&lt;img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" style="border: 0pt none; vertical-align: middle;" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="color: #666666;"&gt;
{Images by Michele Pacey of Michele Made Me: &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/2010/12/juicy-little-gift-boxes.html"&gt;1 + 2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/search/label/toilet%20paper%20roll"&gt;3&lt;/a&gt;} &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-6803145926803785511?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/NgiOUNsp8xE" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/6803145926803785511/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/michele-made-me-sponsor-hello.html#comment-form" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6803145926803785511?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6803145926803785511?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/NgiOUNsp8xE/michele-made-me-sponsor-hello.html" title="Michele Made Me | Sponsor Hello" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R0l2ZBnfcQs/T5sKOshg5BI/AAAAAAAAOnQ/r9SURksBK2c/s72-c/recycled+juice+can+gift+wrapping.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/michele-made-me-sponsor-hello.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DkABSXw9fyp7ImA9WhVVFU4.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-3628170314851750788</id><published>2012-05-07T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-08T20:39:18.267-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-08T20:39:18.267-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="-Birthdays" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Family" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Recycled" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Green gift wrapping" /><title>You Wrapped it in What?</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mumd8HA41Ls/Ttx1kaaNQLI/AAAAAAAAOGw/_qIQky5h7CI/s1600/IMG_2706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mumd8HA41Ls/Ttx1kaaNQLI/AAAAAAAAOGw/_qIQky5h7CI/s500/IMG_2706.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Can you guess what G used to wrap my birthday gift?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5jaid-SFOSA/Ttx1j46kFjI/AAAAAAAAOGs/ycfF3Gh6gls/s1600/IMG_2704.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5jaid-SFOSA/Ttx1j46kFjI/AAAAAAAAOGs/ycfF3Gh6gls/s500/IMG_2704.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Yes, there's a bit of that fabulous &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2010/12/recycled-sari-ribbon-from-darn-good.html"&gt;silk sari ribbon&lt;/a&gt;. But what's that other thing?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LZslfSZu9Qw/Ttx1l8fc-lI/AAAAAAAAOG0/8kScmhi-acA/s1600/IMG_2707.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LZslfSZu9Qw/Ttx1l8fc-lI/AAAAAAAAOG0/8kScmhi-acA/s500/IMG_2707.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Is that a...hand?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4yzTrGi-UFk/Ttx1m9UXCTI/AAAAAAAAOG4/JOQF3einBy4/s1600/IMG_2708.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4yzTrGi-UFk/Ttx1m9UXCTI/AAAAAAAAOG4/JOQF3einBy4/s500/IMG_2708.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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My hand?!?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NiePkijUPxk/Ttx1oUfBRvI/AAAAAAAAOHA/bfjU_4Oh8AU/s1600/IMG_2710.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NiePkijUPxk/Ttx1oUfBRvI/AAAAAAAAOHA/bfjU_4Oh8AU/s500/IMG_2710.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Hee hee. I actually knew what it was, though I did have to do a double-take at first. Our &lt;a href="http://www.danielchinphotography.com/"&gt;wedding photographer&lt;/a&gt; had one of our photos blown up and printed on canvas some years back. (Funny story: He had it on the wall of his house. The first time we visited, we rounded the corner and were confronted with this LARGE, somewhat intimate, photo of us.) He offered it to us when cleaning out some of his photography supplies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cE01GM7wTZs/T5W_Q-RwJRI/AAAAAAAAOkY/XK1QRxK08XY/s1600/070728_0145.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cE01GM7wTZs/T5W_Q-RwJRI/AAAAAAAAOkY/XK1QRxK08XY/s550/070728_0145.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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At first we were kind of pumped, then realized it was embarrassing to have a romantic, 2x4 foot&amp;nbsp; portrait of ourselves hanging in our apartment. It seemed like a waste to toss it and presumptuous to give it to either of our sets of parents. G said he would figure out something to do with it, and indeed he did!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cP2A_XdeVD0/Ttx1nhIun-I/AAAAAAAAOG8/F3cendd10RE/s1600/IMG_2709.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cP2A_XdeVD0/Ttx1nhIun-I/AAAAAAAAOG8/F3cendd10RE/s500/IMG_2709.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Inside I found a big pack of cards from &lt;a href="http://www.fugufugupress.com/home.htm"&gt;Fugu Fugu Press&lt;/a&gt;, my favorite Pasadena letterpress company.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Adi17N3giTw/Ttx1pJ859KI/AAAAAAAAOHE/wkXc5ZGySIw/s1600/IMG_2713.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Adi17N3giTw/Ttx1pJ859KI/AAAAAAAAOHE/wkXc5ZGySIw/s500/IMG_2713.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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They held an &lt;a href="http://fugufugupress.blogspot.com/2011/11/open-studio.html"&gt;open studio&lt;/a&gt; event that I was super bummed to miss, but little did I know that G and N swung by to take advantage of the sale! They sell misprints (which are gorgeous) for a song.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-adwOyAUKnBk/Tt0D9rOVU8I/AAAAAAAAOHI/u4t3M6NEfz0/s1600/IMG_2715.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-adwOyAUKnBk/Tt0D9rOVU8I/AAAAAAAAOHI/u4t3M6NEfz0/s500/IMG_2715.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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Ever since I stopped hoarding stationery and started, you know, sending it to loved ones, I've enjoyed collecting cool cards. Great gift, honey!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What do you all think? Did G make the right decision, or should we have kept our very large portrait intact? What would you have done with it?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Wedding photo by the talented&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.danielchinphotography.com/"&gt;Daniel Chin&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-3628170314851750788?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/-jm8nOhd6Aw" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/3628170314851750788/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/you-wrapped-it-in-what.html#comment-form" title="9 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/3628170314851750788?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/3628170314851750788?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/-jm8nOhd6Aw/you-wrapped-it-in-what.html" title="You Wrapped it in What?" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mumd8HA41Ls/Ttx1kaaNQLI/AAAAAAAAOGw/_qIQky5h7CI/s72-c/IMG_2706.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>9</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/you-wrapped-it-in-what.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUQAQn0yfyp7ImA9WhVVEUo.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-5840516828693393855</id><published>2012-05-04T17:16:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-04T17:22:23.397-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-04T17:22:23.397-07:00</app:edited><title>3 Etsy Sales You Should Know About</title><content type="html">&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k3a62tLza8g/T6Rselga_TI/AAAAAAAAOrk/7QxzotXo6PI/s1600/cathy%2Bmcmurray%2Bvista.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k3a62tLza8g/T6Rselga_TI/AAAAAAAAOrk/7QxzotXo6PI/s500/cathy%2Bmcmurray%2Bvista.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
May seems to be a good month to point you toward some of my favorite Etsy shops. I've been thinking already about my &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Pay%20it%20Forward"&gt;Pay It Forward&lt;/a&gt; report for the end of the month (excited about it already!) but wanted to let you know about these three sales now before they're over.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
1) &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/automaticsweetheart#"&gt;automaticsweetheart&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Handsewn leather bags and accessories by my coworker Renee Valenzuela. Use coupon code COUNTRYLIVING for free domestic shipping.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
2) &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/BallyhooBath#"&gt;Ballyhoo Bath&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
I'm not a beauty product junkie by any means, but I swear by Luci's &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/BallyhooBath?section_id=8075229"&gt;solid shampoos&lt;/a&gt;. Most items are 10% off during May to celebrate Ballyhoo's 1 year anniversary (congrats, Luci!). Check the &lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/BallyhooBath"&gt;Ballyhoo Bath Facebook page&lt;/a&gt; for an additional coupon code.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
3) &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/CathyMcMurray"&gt;Cathy McMurray&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Some of you have seen Cathy's work &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2010/12/pretty-packaging-by-artist-cathy.html"&gt;on my wall&lt;/a&gt; or in my &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/practicing-art-why-we-make.html"&gt;posts&lt;/a&gt;. It's stunning, right? Since winning a print of hers in a swap-a-thon I've become a customer and big fan. Use coupon code MAYDAY through May 6th for 20% off your order.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Have a great weekend!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;&lt;img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" style="border: 0pt none; vertical-align: middle;" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Photo of &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i style="color: #666666;"&gt;Vista&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt; by Cathy McMurray via &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/91680730/vista-original" style="color: #666666;"&gt;Cathy McMurray&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-5840516828693393855?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=TXdNlHh9aBI:q8H_qkdSjfk:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=TXdNlHh9aBI:q8H_qkdSjfk:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=TXdNlHh9aBI:q8H_qkdSjfk:4cEx4HpKnUU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?i=TXdNlHh9aBI:q8H_qkdSjfk:4cEx4HpKnUU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/TXdNlHh9aBI" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/5840516828693393855/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/3-etsy-sales-you-should-know-about.html#comment-form" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5840516828693393855?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5840516828693393855?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/TXdNlHh9aBI/3-etsy-sales-you-should-know-about.html" title="3 Etsy Sales You Should Know About" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k3a62tLza8g/T6Rselga_TI/AAAAAAAAOrk/7QxzotXo6PI/s72-c/cathy%2Bmcmurray%2Bvista.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/3-etsy-sales-you-should-know-about.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;Ak4NSHs-fyp7ImA9WhVVEUg.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-6986707927848029201</id><published>2012-05-04T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-04T12:16:39.557-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-04T12:16:39.557-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Free printables" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="-Mother's Day" /><title>Free Printable Mother's Day Card and More | Free Printable Friday</title><content type="html">After writing about the &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/how-i-paid-it-forward-nov-april.html"&gt;many ways&lt;/a&gt; that creative people enhance my life, take a look at these beauties! Many thanks to the creators of the 3 printables below for sharing their time and talents.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s_OOhV7jYYs/T5eA392wXKI/AAAAAAAAOl4/GDisMW8wXyw/s1600/free+printable+mothers+day+card+with+tissue+flower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img alt="free printable mother's day card" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s_OOhV7jYYs/T5eA392wXKI/AAAAAAAAOl4/GDisMW8wXyw/s500/free+printable+mothers+day+card+with+tissue+flower.jpg" title="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Floral Mother's Day card by Pauline Grayson of &lt;a href="http://sweetmuffinsuite.com/"&gt;Sweet Muffin Suite&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
Free printable &lt;a href="http://sweetmuffinsuite.com/2011/05/free-printable-mothers-day-card-last-minute-bouquet/"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FUC07Zdx3jM/T5eBE-b3HLI/AAAAAAAAOmA/fsWmAOUFGok/s1600/free+printable+mothers+day+breakfast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FUC07Zdx3jM/T5eBE-b3HLI/AAAAAAAAOmA/fsWmAOUFGok/s500/free+printable+mothers+day+breakfast.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Mother's Day breakfast pennants by Jordan of &lt;a href="http://ohhappyday.com/"&gt;Oh Happy Day&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
Free printable &lt;a href="http://ohhappyday.com/2011/05/mothers-day-breakfast-free-printable"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PjfbENyRPUA/T5eBQqwCh0I/AAAAAAAAOmI/_Ft8YDP2dOE/s1600/free+printable+mothers+day+coupons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="375" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PjfbENyRPUA/T5eBQqwCh0I/AAAAAAAAOmI/_Ft8YDP2dOE/s640/free+printable+mothers+day+coupons.jpg" width="500" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Coupons for mom by Jenn of &lt;a href="http://www.ambrosiagirl.com/"&gt;Ambrosia Creative&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
Free printable &lt;a href="http://www.ambrosiagirl.com/blog/service-coupons-for-mom"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Though it's still a couple of Sundays away, I hope your Mother's Day is a sweet one - whether you're an honoree, a party-thrower, or maybe just spending time reflecting on the important women in your life.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/fQhMa4w8EuL8fTcPuUMp5Ae_vNs/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/fQhMa4w8EuL8fTcPuUMp5Ae_vNs/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/TTNiN3WYLjQ" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/6986707927848029201/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/free-printable-mothers-day-card-and.html#comment-form" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6986707927848029201?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/6986707927848029201?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/TTNiN3WYLjQ/free-printable-mothers-day-card-and.html" title="Free Printable Mother's Day Card and More | Free Printable Friday" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s_OOhV7jYYs/T5eA392wXKI/AAAAAAAAOl4/GDisMW8wXyw/s72-c/free+printable+mothers+day+card+with+tissue+flower.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>0</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/free-printable-mothers-day-card-and.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DEMFQnY5eip7ImA9WhVVEEk.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-2721740884662525666</id><published>2012-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-03T05:00:13.822-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-03T05:00:13.822-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Free printables" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="-Mother's Day" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Cards" /><title>All I Want for Mother's Day Card | Free Printable</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8cjHCA4IJVA/T5d2fR9TeBI/AAAAAAAAOlw/kf6M9C_Ov6E/s1600/free+printable+mothers+day+card1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8cjHCA4IJVA/T5d2fR9TeBI/AAAAAAAAOlw/kf6M9C_Ov6E/s1600/free+printable+mothers+day+card1.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;I have a delightful roundup of free printable Mother's Day cards to share with you tomorrow, but today I wanted to point you toward this. Jenn of &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ambrosiagirl.com/blog" style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;Ambrosia Creative&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;designed this card with her husband in mind. She writes:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote class="tr_bq"&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"&gt;So do you have a honey that can use a little direction in honoring you this Mother’s Day? Download this free greeting card, then check off your&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px; text-align: left; text-decoration: line-through;"&gt;wants&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;needs.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
The list on the card is pretty funny. Read it and download the card &lt;a href="http://www.ambrosiagirl.com/blog/mothers-day-card-for-the-dads-free-download/"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Thanks, Jenn! Sometimes a gal needs a hand giving good hints.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Image via &lt;a href="http://www.ambrosiagirl.com/blog/mothers-day-card-for-the-dads-free-download/"&gt;Ambrosia Creative&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-2721740884662525666?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/xwI002tZxm8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/2721740884662525666/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/all-i-want-for-mothers-day-card-free.html#comment-form" title="2 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/2721740884662525666?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/2721740884662525666?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/xwI002tZxm8/all-i-want-for-mothers-day-card-free.html" title="All I Want for Mother's Day Card | Free Printable" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8cjHCA4IJVA/T5d2fR9TeBI/AAAAAAAAOlw/kf6M9C_Ov6E/s72-c/free+printable+mothers+day+card1.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/all-i-want-for-mothers-day-card-free.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;D0YBRH84cCp7ImA9WhVWGUQ.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-5745971223872905490</id><published>2012-05-02T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-05-02T14:45:55.138-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-05-02T14:45:55.138-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Imaginary Tweets" /><title>Imaginary Tweets: Bookworm Edition</title><content type="html">&lt;i&gt;After a few months of not having anything good to read, I stumbled onto a glut of interesting books...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5sT8SUxRguY/T59sdy3t8hI/AAAAAAAAOoQ/33v8FlfwzZg/s1600/books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5sT8SUxRguY/T59sdy3t8hI/AAAAAAAAOoQ/33v8FlfwzZg/s1600/books.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Finished&amp;nbsp;&lt;span style="color: #0000ee;"&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812980530/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0812980530"&gt;Shanghai Girls&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;after hearing author &lt;a href="http://www.lisasee.com/"&gt;Lisa See&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;speak. Smart lady; incredible novel.&lt;span style="color: #0000ee;"&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;l=as2&amp;amp;o=1&amp;amp;a=0812980530" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Anxiously awaiting my turn for&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812980549/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0812980549"&gt;the sequel&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;from the library.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
*&lt;i&gt;Edited to add:&lt;/i&gt; Got it! It's the large print edition; 623 pages. &amp;nbsp;: )&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also loved this funny, down-to-earth&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000P0JGM8/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=B000P0JGM8"&gt;memoir&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;about reviewing restaurants in disguise. (Recommended &lt;a href="http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2012/04/motherhood-mondays-pregnancy-survival.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Related: a&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.gilttaste.com/stories/5016-how-to-make-a-better-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich"&gt;sexy PB&amp;amp;J&lt;/a&gt;? Ruth Reichl shows you how.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Two families I admire immensely have read and implemented&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0787995320/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0787995320"&gt;this book&lt;/a&gt;. Gonna give it a shot!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What have you been reading?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/XteM8OJbPe0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/5745971223872905490/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/imaginary-tweets-bookworm-edition.html#comment-form" title="2 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5745971223872905490?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5745971223872905490?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/XteM8OJbPe0/imaginary-tweets-bookworm-edition.html" title="Imaginary Tweets: Bookworm Edition" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5sT8SUxRguY/T59sdy3t8hI/AAAAAAAAOoQ/33v8FlfwzZg/s72-c/books.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/05/imaginary-tweets-bookworm-edition.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUUFQnk9fSp7ImA9WhVWF0U.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-7939499042007401086</id><published>2012-04-30T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-30T05:00:13.765-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-30T05:00:13.765-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Pay it Forward" /><title>How I Paid it Forward, Nov-April</title><content type="html">Every day, my life is enriched by the work of creative people. I read blogs and try recipes someone shared online. I wake up to &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2010/12/pretty-packaging-by-artist-cathy.html"&gt;pretty art prints&lt;/a&gt; on the wall. It's easy for me to take these things for granted - so I've committed to financially supporting the creative community whose work I enjoy!&amp;nbsp;As promised, I'm back to report some of the ways I chose to &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/pay-it-forward.html"&gt;Pay it Forward&lt;/a&gt; in the past months to support the blogs, businesses and artists that make my life better.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j4oRw6mGfSg/T5bhaoj78lI/AAAAAAAAOlg/VGeM92fX0kc/s1600/whimsy+and+spice+kitchen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j4oRw6mGfSg/T5bhaoj78lI/AAAAAAAAOlg/VGeM92fX0kc/s500/whimsy+and+spice+kitchen.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
First up, &lt;a href="http://www.sweetfineday.com/"&gt;Sweet Fine Day&lt;/a&gt;. Sweet Fine Day is&amp;nbsp;a blog written by Jenna Park about &lt;a href="http://www.sweetfineday.com/2012/04/no-debate-here/"&gt;living in New York&lt;/a&gt;, parenting an &lt;a href="http://www.sweetfineday.com/2011/10/family/"&gt;interracial family&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="http://www.sweetfineday.com/2012/01/shop-news/"&gt;running Whimsy &amp;amp; Spice&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;with her baker husband Mark. The blog has become one of my daily reads, and I treated myself to an order of&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://whimsyandspice.com/item.php?item_id=13&amp;amp;category_id=1"&gt;Chocolate Orange Cardamom shortbread&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;to show my support. Jenna is also the founder and photographer of&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.themixedrace-project.com/About-The-Project"&gt;The Mixed Race Project&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m57vb_IDQ_Y/T5Y5egNdx6I/AAAAAAAAOlI/2In771mRqCg/s1600/chocolate+cardamom+cookies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m57vb_IDQ_Y/T5Y5egNdx6I/AAAAAAAAOlI/2In771mRqCg/s500/chocolate+cardamom+cookies.jpg" title="Cookies as a gift for myself" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Remember &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/03/compliment-wrap.html"&gt;Compliment Wrap&lt;/a&gt;? Tisha had a goal to &lt;a href="http://www.pozible.com.au/index.php/archive/index/4797/description/0/0"&gt;raise&amp;nbsp;$1,000 AUD&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;to start her&amp;nbsp;handmade gift wrapping line. I made a financial pledge when she was only about 50% funded, and guess what!&amp;nbsp;She met her goal and then some. Way to go, Tisha!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dyHbNKd8t6Q/T5Y4wgMhnCI/AAAAAAAAOlA/dAbf88PbVJA/s1600/compliment+gift+wrap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dyHbNKd8t6Q/T5Y4wgMhnCI/AAAAAAAAOlA/dAbf88PbVJA/s500/compliment+gift+wrap.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mCetXhWLHSI/T5Y4Jmy0n5I/AAAAAAAAOk8/U25e1SbDn_0/s1600/Fullscreen+capture+4232012+101911+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mCetXhWLHSI/T5Y4Jmy0n5I/AAAAAAAAOk8/U25e1SbDn_0/s500/Fullscreen+capture+4232012+101911+PM.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
Finally, back in November, I became a paying member of &lt;a href="http://postcardly.com/r/4qns1liz"&gt;Postcardly&lt;/a&gt;. This service lets you use email to send postcards. I always have good intentions to send N's grandparents and great-grandparents family photos, but in reality there are too many steps to do this regularly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/postcardly.com/r/4qns1liz"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2C2awkRJkBk/T5Y54BqQ6RI/AAAAAAAAOlQ/B6z9eM-UB04/s1600/postcardly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2C2awkRJkBk/T5Y54BqQ6RI/AAAAAAAAOlQ/B6z9eM-UB04/s1600/postcardly.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/postcardly.com/r/4qns1liz"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gErc-6EESJg/T5Y68FCTRmI/AAAAAAAAOlc/faDu23buY9Q/s1600/Fullscreen+capture+4232012+102926+PM.bmp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gErc-6EESJg/T5Y68FCTRmI/AAAAAAAAOlc/faDu23buY9Q/s500/Fullscreen+capture+4232012+102926+PM.bmp.jpg" title="Postcardly" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;a href="http://postcardly.com/r/4qns1liz"&gt;Postcardly&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;makes it easy. I type a message that will go on the back of the postcard and&amp;nbsp;attach a photo. They print and send! The old me would have taken advantage of their&lt;a href="http://postcardly.com/r/4qns1liz"&gt; 'send 3 postcards free'&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;promo&amp;nbsp;and called it a day, but I'm really rooting for &lt;a href="https://postcardly.com/content/about"&gt;these guys&lt;/a&gt;. If you try them out through the links above and become a customer, I'll earn some free cards, too. Sweet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Want to join me in paying it forward? Read more about the Pay it Forward project &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/pay-it-forward.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Then leave a comment or drop me a line (giftedmailbox[at]gmail.com) and tell me what you did! I'd love to hear what you did (and maybe even brag about you next month!).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF"&gt;If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Top 2 images by Jenna Park via&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://whimsyandspice.com/content.php?content_id=1014"&gt;Whimsy &amp;amp; Spice&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-7939499042007401086?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=tGHW78NcKsM:vLo_JzXOn5w:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=tGHW78NcKsM:vLo_JzXOn5w:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=tGHW78NcKsM:vLo_JzXOn5w:4cEx4HpKnUU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?i=tGHW78NcKsM:vLo_JzXOn5w:4cEx4HpKnUU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/tGHW78NcKsM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/7939499042007401086/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/how-i-paid-it-forward-nov-april.html#comment-form" title="6 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/7939499042007401086?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/7939499042007401086?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/tGHW78NcKsM/how-i-paid-it-forward-nov-april.html" title="How I Paid it Forward, Nov-April" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j4oRw6mGfSg/T5bhaoj78lI/AAAAAAAAOlg/VGeM92fX0kc/s72-c/whimsy+and+spice+kitchen.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>6</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/how-i-paid-it-forward-nov-april.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;AkcFRHg6fCp7ImA9WhVWFU8.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-141554425979341812</id><published>2012-04-27T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-27T05:00:15.614-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-27T05:00:15.614-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Free printables" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Gift tags" /><title>Sassy Universal Labels | Free Printable Friday</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNVt2gvDN68/T5XVvaaANlI/AAAAAAAAOkg/YI29xPv3gAY/s1600/free+printable+labels+aunt+peaches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNVt2gvDN68/T5XVvaaANlI/AAAAAAAAOkg/YI29xPv3gAY/s500/free+printable+labels+aunt+peaches.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.auntpeaches.com/"&gt;Aunt Peaches&lt;/a&gt; designed these &lt;a href="http://www.auntpeaches.com/2011/08/its-little-things.html"&gt;free printable labels&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;with bold stripes of color that stretch all the way across the page. What a smart thing to do - this means you can print onto any ol' sheet of labels; they don't have to be the same kind as she used. Love it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In the spirit of &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/pay-it-forward.html"&gt;paying it forward&lt;/a&gt;, give Peaches a little shout-out if you print her labels! I'm sure she'd appreciate hearing from you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;&lt;img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" style="border: 0pt none; vertical-align: middle;" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{Image via &lt;a href="http://www.auntpeaches.com/2011/08/its-little-things.html"&gt;Aunt Peaches&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-141554425979341812?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=yEnu4XAlfs0:0kmhZp_kVdM:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=yEnu4XAlfs0:0kmhZp_kVdM:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=yEnu4XAlfs0:0kmhZp_kVdM:4cEx4HpKnUU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?i=yEnu4XAlfs0:0kmhZp_kVdM:4cEx4HpKnUU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/yEnu4XAlfs0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/141554425979341812/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/sassy-universal-labels-free-printable.html#comment-form" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/141554425979341812?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/141554425979341812?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/yEnu4XAlfs0/sassy-universal-labels-free-printable.html" title="Sassy Universal Labels | Free Printable Friday" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNVt2gvDN68/T5XVvaaANlI/AAAAAAAAOkg/YI29xPv3gAY/s72-c/free+printable+labels+aunt+peaches.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/sassy-universal-labels-free-printable.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;D0UERn48cSp7ImA9WhVWE0g.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-5601054353911646855</id><published>2012-04-25T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-25T05:00:07.079-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-25T05:00:07.079-07:00</app:edited><title>To Give a Present</title><content type="html">So maybe after my last post you need a little motivation to &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/pay-it-forward.html"&gt;Pay it Forward&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;Or perhaps you haven't gotten your daily dose of cute claymation videos in yet (what? you haven't??). Either way, check out this animation by &lt;a href="http://www.kirstenlepore.com/"&gt;Kirsten Lepore&lt;/a&gt; for the kids' show&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://yogabbagabba.com/"&gt;Yo Gabba Gabba&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hwus8JfibEw/T5YyWC7_09I/AAAAAAAAOkw/I8xB4QP61ws/s1600/animated+gifts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hwus8JfibEw/T5YyWC7_09I/AAAAAAAAOkw/I8xB4QP61ws/s1600/animated+gifts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img alt="To Give a Present animated gifts" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hwus8JfibEw/T5YyWC7_09I/AAAAAAAAOkw/I8xB4QP61ws/s500/animated+gifts.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/33952163?title=0&amp;amp;byline=0&amp;amp;portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #444444;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://vimeo.com/33952163"&gt;Yo Gabba Gabba - To Give A Present&lt;/a&gt; from &lt;a href="http://vimeo.com/kirstenlepore"&gt;Kirsten Lepore&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href="http://vimeo.com/"&gt;Vimeo&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Delightful. I should show this to N to start the conversation about how it's better to give than receive. Many thanks to our friend E for sending this to me!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;&lt;img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" style="border: 0pt none; vertical-align: middle;" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ZtXF" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"&gt;If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Top image via&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/12/to-give-a-present/"&gt;Colossal&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-5601054353911646855?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=6R3dRxXsO1A:l7ZaQ9APIaA:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=6R3dRxXsO1A:l7ZaQ9APIaA:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?a=6R3dRxXsO1A:l7ZaQ9APIaA:4cEx4HpKnUU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/ZtXF?i=6R3dRxXsO1A:l7ZaQ9APIaA:4cEx4HpKnUU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/6R3dRxXsO1A" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/5601054353911646855/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/to-give-present.html#comment-form" title="3 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5601054353911646855?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5601054353911646855?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/6R3dRxXsO1A/to-give-present.html" title="To Give a Present" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hwus8JfibEw/T5YyWC7_09I/AAAAAAAAOkw/I8xB4QP61ws/s72-c/animated+gifts.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>3</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/to-give-present.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUMDSXszeCp7ImA9WhVWEkw.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-4092228992825428955</id><published>2012-04-23T14:19:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-23T14:44:38.580-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-23T14:44:38.580-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Pay it Forward" /><title>Pay it Forward</title><content type="html">Before I began&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2011/01/common-thread-studio.html"&gt;my job&lt;/a&gt;, I thought I understood the movement to support small businesses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0kjpl08WsO8/T5SNRUaG08I/AAAAAAAAOh0/vdHdHWW6M_M/s1600/common%2Bthread%2Bshop2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0kjpl08WsO8/T5SNRUaG08I/AAAAAAAAOh0/vdHdHWW6M_M/s1600/common%2Bthread%2Bshop2.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
But then I started working at &lt;a href="http://commonthreadstudio.bigcartel.com/" style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;Common Thread Studio&lt;/a&gt;, a small sewing studio in our neighboring town. And all of a sudden I "got" the importance of supporting small businesses. I saw firsthand all that my boss had put on the line to get her dream business off the ground - time, money, her reputation, livelihood. And I finally understood that purchases made at the shop&amp;nbsp;&lt;i style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;directly&lt;/i&gt; allowed her&amp;nbsp;to pay for basic living expenses and provide excellent service to customers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z9cKqTIwkMI/T5SNdxlxy0I/AAAAAAAAOiA/_ePD4JXZqMg/s1600/IMG_2592.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z9cKqTIwkMI/T5SNdxlxy0I/AAAAAAAAOiA/_ePD4JXZqMg/s1600/IMG_2592.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
It also meant that I could support my family while continuing to write The Gifted Blog, and our guest instructors earned side income to support their work as artists and designers. In short, the money coming into the store &lt;i&gt;directly&lt;/i&gt; improved the chances that the creative people working there could continue benefiting the community through their work. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P3uEIEarmak/T5SOPBEteFI/AAAAAAAAOiM/3MqQ3EvDqdA/s1600/IMG_0744.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P3uEIEarmak/T5SOPBEteFI/AAAAAAAAOiM/3MqQ3EvDqdA/s500/IMG_0744.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Right around the time I started my job, I read a &lt;a href="http://www.craftypod.com/2011/01/05/how-sustainable-is-free-the-start-of-a-series/"&gt;post on Craftypod&lt;/a&gt; that I've been mulling over ever since. Sister Diane writes:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote class="tr_bq"&gt;
Every cool blog post, every podcast, every video that you enjoy for free online comes to you because another human being chose to put their time and energy into making it. A few of these folks got paid for their efforts, but the vast majority were doing it for free.&lt;/blockquote&gt;
This excellent post goes on to explain that all this great content is only sustainable if the people making it are rewarded. She says it so much better than I can: read on&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.craftypod.com/2011/01/05/how-sustainable-is-free-the-start-of-a-series/"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cyl9INUK3Z8/T5SOu_sfrXI/AAAAAAAAOiY/cbSuxYSuhdE/s1600/IMG_2561.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cyl9INUK3Z8/T5SOu_sfrXI/AAAAAAAAOiY/cbSuxYSuhdE/s1600/IMG_2561.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
So what does this all mean for me and you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I'm starting a monthly series called &lt;b&gt;Pay it Forward&lt;/b&gt;, very much inspired by Sister Diane's work on&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.craftypod.com/2011/01/28/how-i-supported-some-free-in-january/"&gt;Craftypod&lt;/a&gt;. Will you join me? Each month anyone who wants to participate will ask these two questions:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote class="tr_bq"&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white;"&gt;1)&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Who adds value to my creative life?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;2) Knowing it takes hard work to produce creative inspiration, &lt;b&gt;how can I&amp;nbsp;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;span class="il" style="background-color: white;"&gt;pay&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="il" style="background-color: white;"&gt;it&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="il" style="background-color: white;"&gt;forward&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;span style="background-color: white;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;&amp;nbsp;to sustain them?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;I will choose one or more blogs, businesses, or artists to support and report back to you at the end of the month. I'd like to focus on supporting people financially. But paying it forward can also look like words of support, helping to spread the word about a favorite business, or other non-monetary means of sustaining someone else's work.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UOuRdvfgEck/T5SO1deXtMI/AAAAAAAAOik/m3K6Sg5Dg2Y/s1600/IMG_2578.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UOuRdvfgEck/T5SO1deXtMI/AAAAAAAAOik/m3K6Sg5Dg2Y/s1600/IMG_2578.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt; I want to hear from you! If you pay it forward to sustain someone's creative work, leave a comment, email me at giftedmailbox[at]gmail.com, or give me the link to where you've blogged about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/span&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="border: 2px dotted gray; padding: 10px;"&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;Pay it Forward Idea #1: Blogs with Businesses&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;Do you enjoy any blogs that are attached to businesses? Maybe the &lt;a href="http://www.creaturecomfortsblog.com/"&gt;blogger&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;has a little &lt;a href="http://www.shopcreaturecomforts.com/"&gt;online shop&lt;/a&gt;. Maybe &lt;a href="http://www.dinneralovestory.com/book/"&gt;they&lt;/a&gt; are putting out a &lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062080903/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=giftedblog-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0062080903"&gt;book&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;Or maybe they sell &lt;a href="http://www.michelemademe.com/p/blog-page.html"&gt;cool downloadable tutorials&lt;/a&gt; on their site. Buy something to support their work! Treat yourself or get a gift for Mother's Day and feel good about giving back to a blogger you love.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt; &lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
I'll be back next week to share who I supported this month. What other ideas do you have for paying it forward?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/tlgweFxrN8w" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/4092228992825428955/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/pay-it-forward.html#comment-form" title="6 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/4092228992825428955?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/4092228992825428955?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/tlgweFxrN8w/pay-it-forward.html" title="Pay it Forward" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0kjpl08WsO8/T5SNRUaG08I/AAAAAAAAOh0/vdHdHWW6M_M/s72-c/common%2Bthread%2Bshop2.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>6</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/pay-it-forward.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;CkMESXg7eCp7ImA9WhVXF0g.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-3863642295962253543</id><published>2012-04-18T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-18T05:00:08.600-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-18T05:00:08.600-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Imaginary Tweets" /><title>Imaginary Tweets: Good Habits Edition</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nz5eOVV8dUk/T2_xVjkz_lI/AAAAAAAAOfA/pSmiwj_Z3Bs/s1600/diy+noguchi+lamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nz5eOVV8dUk/T2_xVjkz_lI/AAAAAAAAOfA/pSmiwj_Z3Bs/s500/diy+noguchi+lamp.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
My dad sent me this: Noguchi-style lamp from&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2017811113_bikepartlamp22.html"&gt;bike parts&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Out of a slump and &lt;a href="http://evie-s.com/news/2012/03/20/happy-spring-out-of-the-slump/"&gt;into spring&lt;/a&gt;. Love the first verse she quotes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Darn good&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.dinneralovestory.com/angel-food-cake/"&gt;food writing&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Silk soymilk beats Rice Dream any day. (Especially once I realized rice milk is like sad&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horchata"&gt;horchata&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Thanks again for the &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/03/imaginary-tweets-quinoa-edition.html"&gt;quinoa tips&lt;/a&gt;! We've added it to the rice cooker, G made &lt;a href="http://www.dinneralovestory.com/cookies-for-breakfast/"&gt;these&lt;/a&gt;, and I made a rough approximation of &lt;a href="http://theyearinfood.com/2011/02/radicchio-cara-cara-orange-and-quinoa-salad.html"&gt;this&lt;/a&gt;. On a roll.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I must learn to floss daily!&amp;nbsp;What's the best way you know to form good habits?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Image by &lt;a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/homegarden/2017811113_bikepartlamp22.html"&gt;Trevor Tondro&lt;/a&gt; for the New York Times}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/298824609199186946-3863642295962253543?l=www.thegiftedblog.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/YM66zdV_8I0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/3863642295962253543/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/imaginary-tweets-good-habits-edition.html#comment-form" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/3863642295962253543?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/3863642295962253543?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/YM66zdV_8I0/imaginary-tweets-good-habits-edition.html" title="Imaginary Tweets: Good Habits Edition" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nz5eOVV8dUk/T2_xVjkz_lI/AAAAAAAAOfA/pSmiwj_Z3Bs/s72-c/diy+noguchi+lamp.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>1</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/imaginary-tweets-good-habits-edition.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DUEFSX45fCp7ImA9WhVXFUo.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-2605677128881982012</id><published>2012-04-16T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-16T05:00:18.024-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-16T05:00:18.024-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="-Birthdays" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Wrap Story" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Green gift wrapping" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Reusable" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Box" /><title>IOU Pants | Wrap Story</title><content type="html">What to do when the gift you ordered still hasn't come and your husband's birthday arrives?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bj5WxHP6A2M/TurucEaPBDI/AAAAAAAAOLM/J0OgLkEtv20/s1600/IMG_3076.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bj5WxHP6A2M/TurucEaPBDI/AAAAAAAAOLM/J0OgLkEtv20/s500/IMG_3076.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade...or maybe some paper pants. IOU khakis, honey!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
More info on the reusable gift box &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2009/11/paminboots-product-feature-giveaway.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;i&gt;This Wrap Story is part of a series documenting every present I’ve wrapped since the launch of The Gifted Blog.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #191919; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #191919; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;Click&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Wrap%20Story" style="color: #6caac4; text-decoration: none;"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #191919; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;nbsp;to see them all!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/-ovP6sf-1_A" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/2605677128881982012/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/iou-pants-wrap-story.html#comment-form" title="4 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/2605677128881982012?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/2605677128881982012?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/-ovP6sf-1_A/iou-pants-wrap-story.html" title="IOU Pants | Wrap Story" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bj5WxHP6A2M/TurucEaPBDI/AAAAAAAAOLM/J0OgLkEtv20/s72-c/IMG_3076.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>4</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/iou-pants-wrap-story.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;AkMFSXo5eCp7ImA9WhVXE0w.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-9084606092577428655</id><published>2012-04-13T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-13T05:00:18.420-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-13T05:00:18.420-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Free printables" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Gift tags" /><title>Free Printable Floral Tags | Free Printable Friday</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cdIo0c8NfhU/T0poqt7DVBI/AAAAAAAAkjI/G5-tfUO74M4/s1600/Screen-shot-2012-02-26-at-9.09.31-AM.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cdIo0c8NfhU/T0poqt7DVBI/AAAAAAAAkjI/G5-tfUO74M4/s500/Screen-shot-2012-02-26-at-9.09.31-AM.gif" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Ah, so pretty! Today I'd like to point you toward the Packagery blog for these &lt;a href="http://packagery.com/blog/?p=301"&gt;springtime gift tags&lt;/a&gt;. I can see these adorning a gift wrapped in green tissue or tied around the neck of a bottle of sparkling lemonade. You can also check out the &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/packagery"&gt;Packagery Etsy shop&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;for more gift wrapping inspiration.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Via &lt;a href="http://poppytalk.blogspot.com/2012/02/pretty-printables-floral-tags.html"&gt;Poppytalk&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/AWFFv6fzLzM" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/9084606092577428655/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/free-printable-floral-tags-free.html#comment-form" title="2 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/9084606092577428655?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/9084606092577428655?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/AWFFv6fzLzM/free-printable-floral-tags-free.html" title="Free Printable Floral Tags | Free Printable Friday" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cdIo0c8NfhU/T0poqt7DVBI/AAAAAAAAkjI/G5-tfUO74M4/s72-c/Screen-shot-2012-02-26-at-9.09.31-AM.gif" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/free-printable-floral-tags-free.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;Ck8MRHs-eip7ImA9WhVWFUo.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-2185829174258081567</id><published>2012-04-09T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-27T16:54:45.552-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-27T16:54:45.552-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="-Kid-related" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="-Birthdays" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Wrapping non-material gifts" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Mailing gifts" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Wrap Story" /><title>In Which I Print a Printable | Wrap Story</title><content type="html">You want to know something funny? The &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Free%20printables"&gt;free printable&lt;/a&gt; posts I write are some of the most popular on my blog. Hundreds of people stumble onto The Gifted Blog looking for them. I love featuring free printables because it's fun to make cool gift wrapping accessible to lots of people at no cost.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TXPb8xgpIIQ/T06yArgvWaI/AAAAAAAAOaA/MTbm-THAzvk/s1600/IMG_3443.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TXPb8xgpIIQ/T06yArgvWaI/AAAAAAAAOaA/MTbm-THAzvk/s500/IMG_3443.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
But do you know what we don't own?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
That's right. A printer!&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VLqG-HMaETI/T06yCC23KGI/AAAAAAAAOaQ/8X5kt5acx8M/s1600/IMG_3446.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VLqG-HMaETI/T06yCC23KGI/AAAAAAAAOaQ/8X5kt5acx8M/s500/IMG_3446.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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So even though I don't usually document cards that we send, I thought I'd add this one to the &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Wrap%20Story"&gt;Wrap Story&lt;/a&gt; series because I actually used a&amp;nbsp;printable. G has a printing allowance through his school, so all our printing is done on campus. He kindly printed this &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/02/free-printable-money-envelope-free.html"&gt;money envelope&lt;/a&gt; for me. (Hopefully he didn't run into a professor he's trying to impress while retrieving it from the library printer!)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dZ_KpznrBIU/T06yBg3oG5I/AAAAAAAAOaI/e6Gdetae9OI/s1600/IMG_3445.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dZ_KpznrBIU/T06yBg3oG5I/AAAAAAAAOaI/e6Gdetae9OI/s600/IMG_3445.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
I used the envelope to carry on a tradition of G's grandpa's that he no longer keeps up. Growing up, G and his two sisters would look forward to receiving the same amount of dollars as the age they were turning from Grandma and Grandpa every year. (I thought this was always in dollar coins, but later learned that the tradition started with two dollar bills!)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We sent our nephew a little spending money for his 2nd birthday, and the envelope worked perfectly to hold his coins. I had fun making a boy-appropriate card for him, too. We'll see if this tradition sticks! It would be a fun one to continue.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;This Wrap Story is part of a series documenting every present I’ve wrapped since the launch of The Gifted Blog.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #191919; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #191919; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;i&gt;Click&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Wrap%20Story" style="color: #6caac4; text-decoration: none;"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #191919; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;i style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&amp;nbsp;to see them all!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/BfMHb1hRZDc" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/2185829174258081567/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/in-which-i-print-printable-wrap-story.html#comment-form" title="2 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/2185829174258081567?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/2185829174258081567?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/BfMHb1hRZDc/in-which-i-print-printable-wrap-story.html" title="In Which I Print a Printable | Wrap Story" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TXPb8xgpIIQ/T06yArgvWaI/AAAAAAAAOaA/MTbm-THAzvk/s72-c/IMG_3443.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>2</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/in-which-i-print-printable-wrap-story.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;DEYBSXs_cCp7ImA9WhVXEUw.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-5795446420164068380</id><published>2012-04-06T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-10T20:49:18.548-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-10T20:49:18.548-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Cloth" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Recycled" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="-Valentine's Day" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Furoshiki" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Green gift wrapping" /><title>My Funny Valentine</title><content type="html">I did something I've never done before this past Valentine's. I hinted - heavily - at what I wanted as a gift.&amp;nbsp;
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&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r8K8uvlk5QM/T06x6t-pVeI/AAAAAAAAOZY/KXFBu_GALZA/s1600/IMG_3384.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r8K8uvlk5QM/T06x6t-pVeI/AAAAAAAAOZY/KXFBu_GALZA/s500/IMG_3384.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;
As I mentioned (at the end of this&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/02/free-printable-valentines-goodies-free.html"&gt;post&lt;/a&gt;), G and I don't have any traditions for getting each other gifts for V-Day. We've kind of played it by ear, and each year has looked different.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9sE3fIPvk_E/T06x74c036I/AAAAAAAAOZg/IG45_gBjoG8/s1600/IMG_3380.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9sE3fIPvk_E/T06x74c036I/AAAAAAAAOZg/IG45_gBjoG8/s500/IMG_3380.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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So what changed that I became a gift-hinting spouse? Two things. One, I &lt;i&gt;really &lt;/i&gt;wanted it. I know material things can't bring lasting joy, but this Etsy item was &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/01/imaginary-tweets-ooh-pretty-edition.html"&gt;calling my name&lt;/a&gt;. Two, G didn't get me anything for Christmas. And to be honest, I was bummed. I was stressed over figuring out our first Christmas at home (we usually fly out to be with family), and the first trimester of pregnancy was leaving me bloated, nauseated, and feeling sorry for myself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BcTDKMPR36U/T06x9TU4DqI/AAAAAAAAOZo/3WwLeES6RWU/s1600/IMG_3385.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BcTDKMPR36U/T06x9TU4DqI/AAAAAAAAOZo/3WwLeES6RWU/s500/IMG_3385.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
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So I asked. And lo and behold...I received.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZbA5Ry-wJKk/T06x-EXyYdI/AAAAAAAAOZw/HolaJakUkYk/s1600/IMG_3388.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZbA5Ry-wJKk/T06x-EXyYdI/AAAAAAAAOZw/HolaJakUkYk/s500/IMG_3388.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Thank you, G, for indulging my request for this beautiful &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/soradesigns?ref=top_trail"&gt;Sora Designs&lt;/a&gt; necklace. It is lovely. I enjoy wearing something that is so well-made, and knowing that your purchase is supporting a jewelry maker's dream! (And I get to tell customers at &lt;a href="http://www.commonthreadstudio.com/"&gt;work&lt;/a&gt; it's from a "Valentine's admirer"; hee hee.)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-luI9-XQfLBQ/T06x_ImWLSI/AAAAAAAAOZ4/x8gZ9HehymA/s1600/IMG_3389.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-luI9-XQfLBQ/T06x_ImWLSI/AAAAAAAAOZ4/x8gZ9HehymA/s500/IMG_3389.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
If the gift wrapping looks familiar, G used the &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/02/lulu-wraps-and-missionary-chocolate.html"&gt;silk furoshiki&lt;/a&gt; I received from &lt;a href="http://www.luluwraps.com/"&gt;LuLu Wraps&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;to wrap the necklace. (We'd eaten the chocolates inside maybe a day earlier. Didn't take long for it to be re-used!) Thank you again, honey!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What about you - &lt;b&gt;are you a gift-hinter? Or do you know someone who is?&lt;/b&gt; I think there's an art to doing it well that I haven't yet mastered.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/o25d7TYOvqc" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/5795446420164068380/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/my-funny-valentine.html#comment-form" title="4 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5795446420164068380?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5795446420164068380?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/o25d7TYOvqc/my-funny-valentine.html" title="My Funny Valentine" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r8K8uvlk5QM/T06x6t-pVeI/AAAAAAAAOZY/KXFBu_GALZA/s72-c/IMG_3384.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>4</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/my-funny-valentine.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;Ck8EQHw_fCp7ImA9WhVQFUk.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-5211810532893354566</id><published>2012-04-04T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-04T05:00:01.244-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-04T05:00:01.244-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Why We Make" /><title>Practicing Art | Why We Make</title><content type="html">&lt;i style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;I write The Gifted Blog because I love to create. I've been reflecting on what it means to be a Christian and to love making things. I hope this series will be a jumping-off point for thoughtful discussion among us, no matter your spiritual background. For the whole series,&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Why%20We%20Make" style="text-decoration: none;"&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;blockquote class="tr_bq"&gt;
&lt;span style="line-height: 21px;"&gt;&lt;span style="line-height: normal;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: inherit;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one's soul to grow.&lt;/b&gt; &amp;nbsp;- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ppqRN5DX4Rg/T1lBy-CRV6I/AAAAAAAAOb0/G9fFyePEY58/s1600/cathy_mcmurray1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ppqRN5DX4Rg/T1lBy-CRV6I/AAAAAAAAOb0/G9fFyePEY58/s500/cathy_mcmurray1.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_23Ev1ngaw/T1lB0mhOqZI/AAAAAAAAOb8/9AE_imqQxnA/s1600/cathy_mcmurray2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_23Ev1ngaw/T1lB0mhOqZI/AAAAAAAAOb8/9AE_imqQxnA/s500/cathy_mcmurray2.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LK-nfAostj0/T1lB24lrUZI/AAAAAAAAOcE/F-jf3Ut4Jzg/s1600/cathy_mcmurray3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LK-nfAostj0/T1lB24lrUZI/AAAAAAAAOcE/F-jf3Ut4Jzg/s500/cathy_mcmurray3.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
I found the quote above on my &lt;a href="http://revisionsblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/primary-benefit-of-practicing-any-art.html"&gt;friend's&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://revisionsblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/primary-benefit-of-practicing-any-art.html"&gt;blog&lt;/a&gt;. To be honest,&amp;nbsp;I'm not terribly good at practicing. When I make something, I badly want it to turn out the FIRST TIME. How can it be that practicing an art, well or even&amp;nbsp;badly, helps my soul to grow?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, I do know this: expecting instantaneous perfection is dangerous. When I forget there is only One who is perfect, I start to think I can be perfect, too. I stay in safe waters where I know I can excel instead of jumping into the deep end where I might flounder around. I don't extend myself beyond what I know I can do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
But I want to be someone who grows. Someone who's getting better with time, not plateauing. It's not in my nature to want to practice things I might fail at. &lt;i&gt;God give me the courage to practice, well or badly, in my creative life as well as in the rest of life.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can read B's original post about practicing art&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://revisionsblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/primary-benefit-of-practicing-any-art.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, and learn more about the painting above &lt;a href="http://www.habit-of-art.blogspot.com/2012/03/new-work-and-new-series.html"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #666666;"&gt;{Images of &lt;i&gt;Harvest Moon&lt;/i&gt; in progress by &lt;a href="http://habit-of-art.blogspot.com/2012/03/new-work-and-new-series.html"&gt;Cathy McMurray&lt;/a&gt;}&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/UXpl6PZX0D4" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/5211810532893354566/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/practicing-art-why-we-make.html#comment-form" title="4 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5211810532893354566?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/5211810532893354566?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/UXpl6PZX0D4/practicing-art-why-we-make.html" title="Practicing Art | Why We Make" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ppqRN5DX4Rg/T1lBy-CRV6I/AAAAAAAAOb0/G9fFyePEY58/s72-c/cathy_mcmurray1.jpg" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>4</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/practicing-art-why-we-make.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;D0UDQH8_eip7ImA9WhVQE0U.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-8295830902221732497</id><published>2012-04-02T09:47:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2012-04-02T09:47:51.142-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-04-02T09:47:51.142-07:00</app:edited><title>We're Expecting!</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aHUMtxG_o3s/T3Xzj-xtQWI/AAAAAAAAOgo/pT0NwUSSnvg/s1600/IMG_3572.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aHUMtxG_o3s/T3Xzj-xtQWI/AAAAAAAAOgo/pT0NwUSSnvg/s550/IMG_3572.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Our friends in real life know, but I was holding off on making a blog announcement because I didn't have a good photo. (Hey, I have a visually-oriented audience!) We are 20 weeks in - right at the halfway mark - and found out Thursday that this little one is a BOY. Yay!!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H-_rdO2ysDk/T3Y1CfP1SBI/AAAAAAAAOg4/5CtvMrn_zfM/s1600/IMG_3420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-H-_rdO2ysDk/T3Y1CfP1SBI/AAAAAAAAOg4/5CtvMrn_zfM/s500/IMG_3420.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
(See the hand? Technology is so cool.) I can't believe I'm going to be the mom of two boys. The girls in my generation outnumber the boys 2 to 1 (and if you just count my mom's side, it's 7:1), so I'm still feeling surprised!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k_vlk8GpuH8/T3XzgL71XeI/AAAAAAAAOgI/yQdxW3A12_Q/s1600/IMG_3564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k_vlk8GpuH8/T3XzgL71XeI/AAAAAAAAOgI/yQdxW3A12_Q/s550/IMG_3564.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IlZB3F_gDtQ/T3Xzi8aDKBI/AAAAAAAAOgg/HhN8AImWAnU/s1600/IMG_3571.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IlZB3F_gDtQ/T3Xzi8aDKBI/AAAAAAAAOgg/HhN8AImWAnU/s500/IMG_3571.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
G and I got out for a nice lunch date last week (we've been trying to be more&amp;nbsp;diligent&amp;nbsp;about getting time alone), thanks to our very kind friend E, who offered to babysit. We trekked out to Hollywood from Pasadena and enjoyed some yummy sandwiches and salads at &lt;a href="http://www.foodlabcatering.com/"&gt;Food Lab&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fH1oO7te-Y4/T3XzgxPDN-I/AAAAAAAAOgQ/fnEbxU3Xcy4/s600/IMG_3566.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fH1oO7te-Y4/T3XzgxPDN-I/AAAAAAAAOgQ/fnEbxU3Xcy4/s550/IMG_3566.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NUjPJ2w9Ras/T3Xzhw1AF7I/AAAAAAAAOgY/CzTjGdxVKx4/s1600/IMG_3570.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NUjPJ2w9Ras/T3Xzhw1AF7I/AAAAAAAAOgY/CzTjGdxVKx4/s500/IMG_3570.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I tried a prosciutto and fig sandwich, but the kale salad was the highlight for me. I tried to analyze all the flavors to recreate it later. After lunch we took a long walk and came across this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iMlEbwBmOh4/T3XzlVVDWCI/AAAAAAAAOgw/5NkR7JxljB4/s1600/IMG_3574.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iMlEbwBmOh4/T3XzlVVDWCI/AAAAAAAAOgw/5NkR7JxljB4/s500/IMG_3574.JPG" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Ah ha ha ha. Can you tell parking spots are a valuable commodity here? There are so many other thoughts I could share, but I'll just leave you with a list for now. (Had anyone noticed how food-centered the &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/search/label/Imaginary%20Tweets"&gt;Imaginary Tweets&lt;/a&gt; were getting?)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;u&gt;Things I have craved and eaten:&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
Miso soup&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/pho-licious-arcadia"&gt;Pho&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Sushi&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;a href="http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/11/06/one-minute-chocolate-cake/"&gt;Chocolate cake in a mug&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
Chocolate cake in a mug &lt;a href="http://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article.asp?article_id=482"&gt;a la mode&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
Salt &amp;amp; vinegar chips&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
A &lt;a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/willys-eatery-anaheim-2"&gt;gyro&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
Avocado&amp;nbsp;halves with lemon and salt&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
In-n-Out&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
Rotisserie chicken (though - grocery fail! - the one I bought was unsalted)&lt;/div&gt;
Root beer floats&lt;br /&gt;
A &lt;a href="http://www.doghausdogs.com/"&gt;chili dog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~4/hrIm0yEHzNc" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/feeds/8295830902221732497/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/were-expecting.html#comment-form" title="20 Comments" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/8295830902221732497?v=2" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/298824609199186946/posts/default/8295830902221732497?v=2" /><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/ZtXF/~3/hrIm0yEHzNc/were-expecting.html" title="We're Expecting!" /><author><name>Charissa</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/07114457443454034461</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail" width="32" height="24" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Yi0MtghqTE8/SsAo9Ll5LkI/AAAAAAAAKLc/s7AHasdAX1E/s400/P1050478.JPG" /></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aHUMtxG_o3s/T3Xzj-xtQWI/AAAAAAAAOgo/pT0NwUSSnvg/s72-c/IMG_3572.JPG" height="72" width="72" /><thr:total>20</thr:total><feedburner:origLink>http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2012/04/were-expecting.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry gd:etag="W/&quot;Ak8FRHg7fCp7ImA9WhVQEU0.&quot;"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-298824609199186946.post-9085551133696558222</id><published>2012-03-30T05:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-03-30T05:00:15.604-07:00</updated><app:edited xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app">2012-03-30T05:00:15.604-07:00</app:edited><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Free printables" /><title>Free Printable Easter Goodies | Free Printable Friday</title><content type="html">&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cdHlQmbkWLY/T2oL391R0eI/AAAAAAAAOeY/_sOwHGQjlck/s1600/free+printable+Easter+Gift+Tags.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cdHlQmbkWLY/T2oL391R0eI/AAAAAAAAOeY/_sOwHGQjlck/s670/free+printable+Easter+Gift+Tags.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Easter gift tags and stickers by Sarah of &lt;a href="http://sarahhearts.com/"&gt;sarah hearts&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
Free printable &lt;a href="http://sarahhearts.com/2011-04-20/easterlabels/"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JGMuzFmjlmw/T2oL5HukruI/AAAAAAAAOeg/3tMq2YCeghY/s1600/free+printable+easter+card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JGMuzFmjlmw/T2oL5HukruI/AAAAAAAAOeg/3tMq2YCeghY/s500/free+printable+easter+card.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Modern Easter card by Meg of &lt;a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/olliegraphic"&gt;Olliegraphic&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
Free printable &lt;a href="http://www.ohmyhandmade.com/2010/what-we-love/free-downloads/free-download-an-easter-greeting"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a182nKAYguk/T2oL8EBaRJI/AAAAAAAAOeo/T42DUb_G6kI/s1600/free+printable+easter+gift+tags1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a182nKAYguk/T2oL8EBaRJI/AAAAAAAAOeo/T42DUb_G6kI/s755/free+printable+easter+gift+tags1.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="clear: both;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
Easter gift tags in 3 colors by Sam of &lt;a href="http://blog.elephantshoe.com/"&gt;Elephant Shoe&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
Free printable &lt;a href="http://blog.elephantshoe.com/journal/2011/4/23/happy-easter-a-free-easter-gift-tag-for-you-to-download.html"&gt;HERE&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;A year ago&lt;/b&gt;: &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2011/04/printable-easter-gift-tags-free.html"&gt;Printable Easter Gift Tags&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;Two years ago&lt;/b&gt;: &lt;a href="http://www.thegiftedblog.com/2010/04/inspired-by-paper-play.html"&gt;Inspired By: Paper Play&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;(egg wrapping!)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Do you celebrate Easter? I've been meeting with an amazing team of ladies to share, laugh, pray, and plan the children's program at our church, including Easter activites. It's been such a rich and fun time so far. If you are celebrating, hope these printables help you to add some festivity to the day!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
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