The Twelve Days of Christmas Miller Style

If it is Christmastime, I'm planning a 12 Days of Christmas gift for my nieces and nephews.  I also gift one set to good friends who have small children.  It is a ton of fun, gives me an excuse for crafting and makes a good gift in times like these where the children I know have everything they could wish for.

I'm starting with the card set I made.  I thought this set would be sufficiently Christms-y, but could be used throughout the winter season for thank yous.  I made a set of four for each family.  This card was a piece of cake to spin out 12 of using my MISTI stamp tool.  I placed the Darkroom Door Yuletide Vol. 1 stamp in my MISTI and stamped in green ink repeatedly.  That took about 5 mintues.  Then I placed the sentiment and heart stamp and inked in black Archival ink.  I stamped all 12 cards in less than 10 minutes using the MISTI.  I then wrapped this twine around the card and then twine to hold the set of 4 together.  I even whipped up a couple extra for my daughter to give to teachers, etc.  Those were more Christmas specific, so I used a gold ink pen to color circle ornaments on the tree.  I didn't snap a shot, but this was fantastic too.

Onto some of the other treats I made:

I used a piece of cardstock to create a cone and then glued kisses to the cardstock.  To fill the gaps, I used some red shiny plastic garland - using a glue dot at the beginning and end of the garland to hold it into place.  I loosely followed this as an guide.

I used this recipe to make my own mints.  Couple of tips - I used 1 tsp organic, pure peppermint oil.  I could have used the 1/2 tsp. as suggested.  I think the organic makes the oil stronger, so if using McCormick or something like that - maybe 1 tsp.  Also, when the cream cheese gets warm it gets sticky.  I used the Cricut to cut wax paper circles to layer between the mints to try to keep them separate.  You can barely see the wax paper.

I thought these were so adorable so I just had to lift the idea.  The snowflake was cut using the Cricut out of white cardstock.  The red is a rather opaque washi tape - I worked fabulously.  I used my paper trimmer to cut the rectangles and then my corner rounder to trim the corners.  After gluing the hat together, I stuffed the clear treat bags with the hot cocoa mix and marshmallows.

This year I made the bags rather plain - stamping with my Graphic 45 12 Days of Christmas stamps.  I first stamped with white ink onto the kraft lunch bag and then stamped a second time with a colored ink.  Some of the images were a bit difficult to read, but all were legible.  Here's a complete list of the gifts and the phrases I used:

On the first day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Pear trees are not particularly pretty and so we thought you might enjoy these mints instead.  [cream cheese mints]

On the second day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Something to prevent a Chappy Christmas! (Chapsticks)

On the third day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

All the things you need to make a very smart [felt] French flag.  Do you know how to assemble these?

On the fourth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

The calling birds thought you might like these note cards to send out your gratitude.  [thank you cards]

On the fifth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

We thought you might enjoy something to do with all your time off.  Make an angel or five!  Then hang them or give them away!  [Supplies and instructions to make paper clip angels]

On the sixth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Something to make the house smell fantastic!  [one pot simmer potpourri, anyone need some whole Allspice?  A pound of this was cheaper than one container locally which wouldn't have been enough.  now I can make this simmer until I die with the amount of Allspice I have...and I'm assuming I have a very long life!]

On the seventh day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!   [sparkling cider - a tradition every year]


On the eighth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

With all the milk provided by those maids, surely these snowmen will come in handy!  [hot cocoa snowment treat bags (above)]

On the ninth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

The ladies thought you might enjoy some pretty gel nail color for your tippy toes.  This stuff will last even if you dance the night away!   [gel nail polish]

On the tenth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

With all those lords a leaping around, we thought you might need this to get into shape and join them!   [ jump rope]

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

All the supplies need to make your own flute/pipe.  Then parade around the neighborhood like those pipers and go a piping!  [supplies to make these]

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my good friends gave to me….

Isn’t that Christmas tree put away by now?  No?  Well then, put this one away in your tummy!  But be sure to share because everyone loves a chocolate on a Christmas tree!   [kisses tree above]

All the bags will have now been open.  I hope that the kids get the same joy out of opening these and doing the crafts as I did making them.  Thanks for indulging one last Christmas craft.