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.

Wrapping Up the 12 Days of Christmas

I thought I would share my Cricut cuts and stamping done for packaging the 12 Days of Christmas gifts.  Each bag was stamped using a retired Heartfelt Creations stamp in cranberry Close to My Heart stamp ink.  I colored the leaves with a Close to My Heart ink pen and created the centers with my Viva Decor red pearl pen.  The die cuts were mostly cut at 4 1/2 inches in layers using the Joys of the Season cart.

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

 That darn Partridge thought you might enjoy this funny Christmas story!

They each received a copy of The Best Christmas Pagent Ever!

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

 Rather that two turtle doves we thought you might enjoy making something instead!


They each received the ingredients for making turtle brownies.

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

 Those French hens are happy homemakers!  They thought you might enjoy making this potpourri.


They each received the potpourri ingredients shown in my previous post.

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.


This gift was the thank you cards shown in my previous post.

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

 Something to light up the night.  Not quite as good as glinting gold, but hopefully fun nonetheless!



I stamped napkins and colored with ink and used a heat gun to melt wax paper around votive candles.  I failed to get a photo of the candles, but trust me they were cute.

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

We considered a new car, but decided on something you could really use!  We hope you like your new washer and dryer!


This gift was a new washcloth and towel.  Funny, yes?  

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

Swans, a time honored symbol of love.  Instead of those noisy birds, we thought you might enjoy kiss filled trees instead.

This gift was the Christmas trees from my previous post.

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

The milk provided by those maids was likely to be curdled by now.  We thought you might enjoy this to toast the New Year!


This gift was the reindeer sparkling cider from my previous post.

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

 The ladies thought you might enjoy some pretty color for your tippy toes.


A small pink nailpolish- so cute.

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

Those lords something about tired feet!  Here’s a little gift to sooth them after a long day’s work.


This was the sugar scrub from my previous post.  The Lord is wearing a gold crown triple embossed with gold embossing powder.  Fun!

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

Piping hot goodness to warm your January days.



This bag was filled with hot cocoa and hot apple cider mixes.

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

A game to play for the entire family.  Don’t eat Pete (it’s no way to start the new year)!


A bag of M & Ms and a Don't Eat Pete board.  Hopefully the kids enjoyed playing this game...

I typically wrap a cardboard box to carry the gifts in.  Here's the final version.  And one more under our ginormous Christmas tree:

Three sets to fill the space under the Christmas tree.  These beauties were completed about 3 pm on Christmas eve.  Nothing like waiting until the last minutes....

12 Days of Christmas 2013

I've shared a couple times before that one of our family traditions is to make and gift the 12 Days of Christmas.  It started because friends of ours dropped off a gift every day for the 12 days before Christmas.  Each gift came with a sweet tag, a poem and kind words.  We'd no idea who was doing this until Christmas Eve when the last gift arrived.  It was so very touching and thoughtful that I immediately craftied the idea up and have been doing it every since. 









I typically make one set for my nephew, one set for my niece and nephew and one set for good friends of ours, the McCleary (mamma McCleary being the one of Bubble Guppies crafty fame who is featured occassionally).









I am not nearly organized enough to get everything made and decorated and wrapped for the 12 days before Christmas, but instead gift the entire set on Christmas Eve or Christmas day with the intention that they open one each day til the Epiphany.  This year, I came across Graphic 45's stamp set and said- "That, my friend, belongs to me".  I really did say that out loud because Brandy was shopping with me!





The tricky part was making time to create with the stamp set and 6 x 6 paper pad.  In the end, these tags were made for the outside of each bag on the weekend before Christmas- terribly late.  However, my husband and the kids were away for two days visiting his mom and dad so it was craft heaven around our house.  Just me and the saints a craftin' away to Christmas tunes. 

























As a reference, I'll connect in to the two other posts I've made regarding the 12 Days of Christmas.  The first post shows how I made a set of 12 Christmas cards as a gift to a few of my Bible study friends.  I found a list online that linked Bible verses to the 12 Days ideas and used the same layout for each card varying the patterned paper layers in each card.







The second post outlines a few ideas for a 12 Days of Christmas gift like this one.  I used the exact same idea this year- 12 paper lunch bags with the gift and tag inside telling our friends of the connection to the 12 Days and a tag outside the bag to tell you which bag to open on which day.







This year, the tags for the outside were very simple.  Here's the details:

• Each tag was cut using my Accent Essentials Cricut cart from the Graphic 45 6 x 6 paper pad.  The paper is double sided with one side solid and the other side patterned.
• I stamped the Graphic 45 stamp for each day using brown Archival Ink on the solid side of the tag.  I edged the tags with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

•  Each tag is embellished with FlowerSoft, glitter, and/or bling accents.  I used Crystal Accents to clue on the FlowerSoft (Delphinium Blue, Christmas Green and Heather) and the bling accents and a glue pen to accurately place the glitter.  Please forgive the poor glitter photos.  I just tried to get an exposure that would highlight that glitter was used!

I didn't have a whole lot of time and I envisioned a much more beautiful, intricate and detailed final product than what I made.  Yet, I am so pleased with how they turned out.  Sometimes, simple is just beautiful and I think these tags ultimately hit the mark!






















Here's a photo of the supplies before we began bagging everything up.  I'll confess that the cost of filling the bags varies greatly.  I look for low cost, high impact items like candy and slippers, etc.

ETA:  The whole Google Plus thingy didn't work.  I've included the copy here though you'll have to delete the parentheses which identify what I gave as a gift:

On the first day of Christmas… The partridge dropped off an ornament for you! (a bird ornament)	On the second day of Christmas… The turtle doves thought  you might enjoy these little Cuties. (Cutie oranges)
On the third day of Christmas… Those French hens are talkative, so they gave you these cards to write someone a note. (handmade cards- look below)	On the fourth day of Christmas… The calling birds are always talking.  Everyone has been going on about this treat.  What do you think? (Chocolate Covered Pretzels a new favorite in our house)
On the fifth day of Christmas… Search through these rolls to find the elusive gold (pineapple!) ring. (Rolls of Lifesaver candies)	On the sixth day of Christmas… The geese a-laying made a huge mess so they kindly left these to help you clean up. (washrags)
On the seventh day of Christmas… When you get done swimming with the swans, sooth your dry skin with some peppermint lotion.	On the eighth day of Christmas… The maids thought you might enjoy making some muffins to go with all that milk. (muffin mix)
On the ninth day of Christmas… The ladies recently started dancing by candlelight.  Light this candle and see if they visit!	On the tenth day of Christmas… The Lords find these socks feel real good on their tired feet.  They even agreed to share with you. (I made them wash their feet first!) (fuzzy socks)
On the eleventh day of Christmas… The pipers find they suffer from dry mouth – all that piping.  Here’s some of their favorite gum to wet your whistle. (a pack of gum)	On the twelfth day of Christmas… The drummers like to celebrate- enjoy a fizzy cup on them. (sparkling cider)

This year, I printed the cards out on my printer and then cut them using my Spellbinders Labels 18 and my Spellbinders Labels 17.  I then stamped the corners of some of the cards with the corner stamp from the Graphic 45 stamp set.









You'll notice that I got my craft on making some thoughtful cards (those French hens- always communicating) as one of the gifts.  This card was made by stamping a kraft card using my Papertrey Ink Rustic Wreath stamp using brown Archival Ink and coloring in the leaves using my Peeled Paint Distress Marker and finishing it off with a brown Archival Ink sentiment stamp right in the middle.  Quick and easy but highly effective, don't you think?








In process picture>>>>>>

I ended up stamping white cardstock with the title stamp from the Graphic 45 stamps and accented with the corner stamp.  I then cut out this image using my Imperial Gold Labels 4 die.  I simply glued this to a cardboard box top that I had wrapped with some plaid Christmas colored wrapping paper. 

The finished product.  I have so much fun doing this, I'm convinced that no one enjoys the gift as much as I enjoy making it.  They assure me this is not so, but I can't imagine that.  Thanks for sticking with this very picture heavy post.  Hope you enjoyed the trip.