Focus on Christy!

I was hesitant to post this project because it was a personal gift for our friend (and "Other Mom" to our kids) for her birthday, even though I have posted pretty much all the gifts I've made since starting this blog. I don't know why I hesitated with this one. But I guess I got over it. Because:

1) She posted it on her blog. :)

2) I recently discovered Linky parties and I'm somewhat insecure and shamelessly in need of positive feedback. :P

So here it is!

Christy introduced me to the concept of the "Word Of The Year" a couple of years ago. Her word this year is FOCUS. I wanted to give her a gift that would have lots of sensory representations of her word.

So I looked up the meanings of colors and scents to get some inspiration.

I discovered that brown was a color that promotes concentration and study.

I learned that the colors and scents of Eucalyptus, Jasmine and Amber helped to provide focus.

So Kenzie and I went shopping armed with that list of colors (Green, White, Brown/Gold) and scents.

After some browsing we came across this gift set.

It came with the unscented candles, the plate, the diffuser reeds and vase,  the rocks and a bottle of sweet pea and jasmine scented oil.

It's really hard to find anything that is ONLY jasmine scented. Isn't that weird? Jasmine is such a beautiful scent all on it's own.

I don't LOVE these gift sets but it had all the elements we were looking for so we used it as a starting point.

We also bought a frame with a lovely brown finish and some coordinating scrap book papers.

Using these, I printed out the word Focus and a couple of it's definitions and framed it using the papers and some embellishments I had on hand.

I used the same scrapbook paper to embellish the candles and make a card to go with the gift to tell her how much we love her and how important she is to our family.

Kenzie and I also found some jasmine (plus another scent) milk bath and some amber scented hand lotion.

We put it all together in a box wrapped with plain brown craft paper. Just loosely scrunched around the box. really. I liked the fluffy look of it that way.

And then tied it all up in a gift basket bag from the dollar store.

It was a gift that didn't cost a lot but had great meaning for someone who means a lot to us. 

Linking to some fun parties! Go check them out. They're FULL of links to seriously talented crafters.

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on The Porch

(I can't figure out how to get her button so a clickable link will have to do till someone can explain it to me.)