Payneless and Cute Gift Card Wrapping

I love to receive gift cards as a gift but for some reason when I am giving them as a gift I feel bad. Like it may not be personal enough or cute enough to give as a gift.
My sister in law loves to shop so when her birthday came around last month I knew I would end up getting her a gift card so she could shop. I wanted to make it look cute and dress it up a little....This is what I created in about 3 minutes.

As I stood in line at Marshalls to get the gift card I saw this cute ceramic coffee mug.
It was on clearance for $3.00 so I grabbed it and thought "I can use this for the wrapping" however I wasn't quite sure how I would do that...So I went back to work and just had it in the back of my head. Suddenly it occurred to me. I just add some green wrinkle paper and a cute sign! 

Grilled Cheese Surprise

Something we tried this week I thought I would share...The surprise is a little bruschetta center!
My boss had made this for lunch a few times and it looked really good. Even though John and I hate tomatoes we LOVE this!!

Butter a slice of Sourdough bread

Add Tomatoes, Balsamic Vinegar, fresh basil and a dash of garlic  

Put one slice of the buttered bread on a hot skillet (medium/hot) add shredded Mozzarella, Grated Romano and the Tomatoes 

Add Top Piece of Bread

And Enjoy! 

Enjoy!

And...I'm back!

Wow has it been awhile!! Like....4 months..oops! Well we had a lot going on during these past 4 months. We were in escrow on a condo and just as we were about to close and get our keys the deal fell through. That was a very stressful few months! Even though we went through a lot we learned new things are will be better prepared when it happens again.

We are getting settled into our little one bedroom apartment for now and will look to buy again next year.

Other than all of the moving news I did have a few "creative" things happen....

Steph's Birthday at the Winery! We had the best day and it was so easy to coordinate and plan. Sometimes a payneless call into a place before you arrive can change your whole experience! I did this to celebrate Megan's new job at Northwestern Mutual as well! Check out the photos!

The girls piggy banks for "Wine Money" 

The table was all set up for us after our tasting

Outside the Winery! 

I went up the night before and gave the staff my little gifts and cupcakes and platter for them to set up outside as a surprise to the girls!

When I called ahead I asked that they have a cheese platter waiting for us...Yummmy!

Arrived at Winery and we had a tour and tasting all scheduled

Took Megan to POP Champagne and Dessert Bar and called ahead and asked them to bring out this YUMMY dessert with Congratulations Megan on it! She loved and it was a great surprise that just added so much to our dinner experience! 

Now, I do realize that these are nothing super exciting or original but its just that extra minute of detail to make a call before you arrive that really can change everything!

Enjoy!