A Gift with a Cherry on Top

Let's face it...I am a lazy blogger.  You would think with the amount of snow days we had this year, I would have been churning out posts right and left.  Nope.  I have ideas in my head and photos in my camera and even drafts at my blog site....but no posts...until I do something so cute and so easy I just have to share such as this year's administrative assistants' gifts.

I have had this pin pinned on my gifts board forever.  I love the red suckers as cherries so I decided this year's theme would be cherry.

I can't find the source for this.  It is much pinned, but each pin links to a page not found.  

If you know the source, let me know!

At an estate sale, I bought about 30 wooden baskets for $1.00.  There were tucked in a corner in the barn.  (When you go to an estate sale, you have to get out to the sheds and barns....all kinds of treasures lurk in the cobweb filled corners!)  I love their vintage wood look.  I found the gingham washcloths at Gordman's.  (I am kind of on a gingham kick right now.  I own two gingham shirts...which Kellyn says is a bit of leaning a bit too much toward the dreaded teacher clothes.)

If you are going to do a cherry theme gift basket, don't head to the store looking for cherry flavored stuff because it just isn't there.  Apparently raspberry is the flavor of the day.  There is quite a bit of strawberry too, but even though the red fit the bill, I couldn't stray from my cherry theme.  (Kellyn says I take a theme too far.)  I settled for my go-to red candy decor Cherry Sours....cheap and addicting.  I divided them among baggies and made a topper using card stock.

As soon as I decided on a cherry theme, I sent off to Michigan for our favorite cherry salsa.  Every summer we vacation in Michigan just so we can bring home jars of the stuff!  I ordered jars from Cherry Republic. If you ever find yourself along the west shores of Michigan, you have to try the stuff...sweet and hot make a powerful combination.

Lucky for me (and my grandchildren) one bag of Dum Dums yielded just enough cherry suckers for four gift baskets.  We had fun trying the mystery suckers.  Buttered popcorn was tolerable, smoked bacon was terrible and pizza was horrific.  My grandson liked them all!

A little hot glue to a homemade card and some green and white bakers twine and I was done.  Even Kellyn thought they were cute and worth obsessing about that cherry theme.

The hard part about giving gifts with a theme is that your recipients come to love them and you don't want to disappoint them.  At least I have a whole year to think of a new theme!


Patty