Simply Altered

ok.  I have a little bit of a story behind THIS gift!!!

Every now and then, I get so many things in excess, with all the craftiness I have going on, even scraps, I am willing to give to someone else that can use them.

So, a few weeks ago, I invited all my sisters (and female family members), to my “junkfest”  haha….what I was ready to toss, I knew they could find a use for.  I had everything from scrapbooking scraps, to extra hairbrushes to spices from my kitchen that I am still not sure why I ever bought.

They all came, and most left with a bag full of “stuff” .  I was more than happy to get rid of it all.

Here are three of the many items that my neice Jessi (BeJes) left with.   (me not knowing , at the time, she had drawn MY name for our Christmas exchange)

an empty jar, some Magnetic Poetry words and a notebook I thought I no longer needed.

Fast forward to Christmas.

We have a modest $10 gift limit, to keep things interesting.  To some, $10 would be a hard limit to stay within.  Not BeJes.  This girls can literally make something out of NOTHING.  (and in this case, the gift was not only FREE, but from things I owned originally)   too good!!!

I have forever wanted to “journal”.   Yep, I have started many, and finished NONE.   I have good intentions, but that is as far as it ever goes.  I have even had those generic sort of books that actually have questions in them…but I lose interest.

I had forwarded an e mail to my family LONG ago, with a “Memory” jar, filled with journalling prompt sort of questions.  Telling them someday I would love to have one of these made for me.

Here it is:

Merry Christmas !!!!

How cool is THIS anyway????   yep, all from the items I had GIVEN to her!!!  even the initials and little beads were my cast offs!!!   she had ZERO money spent in this gift!!!   no money, but she took the time to hand write 300 journalling prompts for me.  She tells me , some are general questions, some are specifically for ME  !!!     I . LOVE  . IT  .    I love the gift, I love the whole idea and most of all, I love that she spent NO money on it.  Trust me, there is not one thing she could have purchased at a mall that would mean as much as getting these items back in my possession and repurposed into a gift!!!!

I decided I will do them at random.  The fun of it, is the wondering WHAT all those questions are!!!   (and no, I will NOT cheat and look ahead)

With ANY luck, by next Christmas, I will have the book full, and we can all read it together on Christmas Day!!!!!

Now……being the overachiever that she is, she was not about to be done with this awesome gift.  Heck, no, I got THREE different gifts total on Christmas Day!!!   The other ones are equally frugal, repurposed and meaningful.  I will post those next !!!  you will continue to be amazed.   I am not sure she even spent close to her $10 limit, but the love and thought that goes into it is all that REALLY MATTERS  !!!!!!!

and I will invite her to add any additonal details (that I might have missed) or answer all questions directed at her, through this post.  :)

Thanks again BeJes.  You Rock!!!

This entry was posted on January 4, 2010 at 2:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.