It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas......

"The manner of giving is worth more than the gift." ~Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur

Okay, well maybe it's not exactly looking a lot like Christmas yet, but it is definitely right around the corner. And in these hard economic times, I don't have to tell you, that buying Christmas gifts for every one on our lists can be somewhat overwhelming, if not, down right impossible.

So, today, I am going to share with you an idea that is not only personal, handmade, easy, and cute, but it is also cheap inexpensive.

It is a scrapbook made out of brown paper lunch sacks.

I made this scrapbook of our family (and friend's) vacation to the beach.

This scrapbook took about six paper lunch sacks (folded in the middle and stacked by alternating ends of the sacks), and I used a hole puncher to punch holes in the "binding area." Then I used white yarn to tie it all together. You could also use decorative ribbon, or really anything that would compliment the pictures or occasion that you are placing in the scrapbook.

Here is a picture of the front of my scrapbook. (If you don't mind, just pretend that you don't notice the torn "e" in Mahoney. Thanks!)



Followed, of course, by the back.



Please feel completely free to ignore us in this picture.



Sigh.



We had such a great time with our boys on this trip.



Pay no attention to the hat that I am wearing in this picture; I had to wear it to help cover up some hair related issues that I was dealing with. *sniff*sniff*



Is it just me, or do the boys look like they are tired of posing for my pictures?;)



I had been saving these night time stickers for the perfect occasion, and I think hermit crab hunting worked well with them.



I do love me some Shannon at the beach.



Sigh.

The room we reserved said it had an "ocean view." It did indeed have an ocean view; the brochure just forgot to mention that you had to peek between two buildings to see it.



The boys really loved playing in the pool. Mainly because of the lack of jellyfish and sharks swimming in it. (A child was attacked by a shark just a little ways down the beach from where we were staying; we unfortunately heard that on the local news while we were in the condo. I am a HUGE "Jaws" fan....on television though, not so much in person.)



The picture of the boys playing in the sand and our friend playing in the ocean was a little too big to fit in the area that I had to work with, so I cropped the picture to fit, but that cut our friend out of the ocean. So, if you look closely, you will notice that I cut her out and placed her in the water closer to the boys. Problem solved.



Aren't I clever? ;)

This last picture is one of Shannon's and my favorite memories; the boys look perfectly miserable at the beach. LOL!:)



We keep teasing the boys each year that we are going to use that picture for our annual Christmas card. LOL! They don't seem to think that joke is as funny as Shannon and I do though.;)

Of course, the possibilities are endless with this idea. For example, if someone you know has a new baby, you could use white paper lunch sacks, and use blue and pink stickers and paper embellishments, and fill the book with that year's milestones for the baby, such as a new tooth, first time to crawl, first steps, etc.
This would also be a great gift for grandparents, newlyweds, high school students, teachers, etc.

And you can see that even though the scrapbook is "small," you can still fit stickers and words on the pages to personalize it, and really make it cute. Not only that, if you would need to send the gift via the postal service, it would not cost a lot of money, because it is not big and doesn't weigh very much at all.

So, now it's your turn, do you have any handmade, cheap inexpensive gift-giving ideas? If so, please share.

"It isn't the size of the gift that matters, but the size of the heart that gives it." ~Eileen Elias Freeman