Christmas Baking

I know it is a bit early to start my Christmas baking, but thought I would share photos of the decorated tins I will packing full of shortbread cookies for my Mum. The tins are from Dollarama...my fave Dollar Store! They bring them out in different colours at various times during the year.
You can also use one quart pain tins (purchased empty and new from your local paint store)...but they are about twice the price and then still need spray painted outside!!! For very hungry friends and families you could use the brand new, one gallon tins from your local paint store.

The first tin is very easy. It is just a red paint can with white foam snowflakes from the same Dollar Store stuck randomly all over it. There are various sizes of snowflakes, so it does not end up looking too even. I saved one large snowflake for the lid, and then tied a variety of Christmas coloured ribbon to the wire handle.

The second is a little fancier looking but I can assure you it is nearly as easy! The script "Merry Christmas" is a scrapbook page topper from the Dollar Store. It has been mounted on a strip of green cardstock and then matted with a strip of striped paper. I then glued it to the tin with red glue lines and then stuck a chipboard Santa to the lid. The wire handle has once again been tied with some snippets of ribbon.

Here is a view of the word Merry...you will have to take my word that the whole thing spells Merry Christmas as it is impossible to get the whole word in the photos. lol

This project is proof of the power of saving snippets of all sorts. I make tins like this at Halloween, Easter, etc. My appropriate  ribbon snippets collected during the year, are saved in tins like this. Easter colours into a pastel tin along with any "orphaned" embellies or stickers , Christmas colours into a green, red or blue one! Leftover snowflakes, etc are thrown in them too...When I have a need to make up a new tin, I have the "ingredients" ready. Luckily, this size of tin fits on top of the tall cupboards in my scrapbook room.

I will try to remember to post a picture just before I mail it...when they are both full of yummy shortbread cookies. I make whipped shortbread and also a sliced version. The sliced are rolled like a refrigerator cookie, set in the fridge to firm for an hour or so and then sliced and pricked with a fork. They were a recipe from my English Grandma and it would not be Christmas without them! They are the same ingredients as a traditional shortbread and have the same texture.

Did you notice my photos are crisper again? I finally got out to a camera shop and had it corrected and cleaned. There was a smear of something dirtying my lens in the center. They would not take any payment and so I wondered about afterwards, checking out their camera and printers. The newer version of my camera now has a wifi version.  I think I know what I will want when this one finally packs it in! They also had the Selphy photo printer...they are very popular with crafters who do December Daily or Project Life as you can print direct from your phone or your camera...I will have to check and see if they work with Windows 8 as well.

Off to go retake some of the really out of focus photos on my posts in the past couple of weeks, and then reload them to my blog!!! It is such a good feeling to have the camera problem resolved. Now if I could just learn to take good photos...lol

I am entering the Merry Christmas tin into the following challenges:
1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets...the striped DP and the green card were snippets.
2. Ribbon Carousel Challenge -  Holidays and Celebrations, must use spooled item
3. Craft my Life All Crafts Challenge - Anything but a card
4. Allsorts Challenge - Make a Gift
5. Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge - Gift Packaging and Ribbon