Pepper Design Blog

Liv’s ‘Bag of Kisses’ Valentine’s Day Project

***Congrats to Ashley D. on winning the $100 Minted.com giveaway!! Thank you to everyone who entered***

Liv and I made little Valentine’s Day treat bags for her grandparents and great grandparents (they were inspired by this version we made last year for Mother’s Day with drawings by Liv and taffy), and this time around we filled the little clear bags with Hershey’s kisses to officially send ‘Bags of Kisses’ through the mail.

BUT, before I share this super easy and customizable candy bag, I have to share that we had our little gender reveal party yesterday and it was so much fun! So neat to experience the awesome surprise of what we’re having with everyone at the same time!! Caught it on camera so I can share the surprise with you all. But you have to wait just one more day or two while I edit the video! So sorry for the suspense… let me just say I was totally caught off guard!

Okay… back to the cute little baggies .

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‘Bag of Kisses’ Treat Bags

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Materials: pretty paper, clear treat bags (almost any size will work – I used 5×7 bags for this project and 4×6 bags for today’s project), an optional photo or image for the bag, Hershey’s kisses, paper cutter, glue/stapler 

A very quick and simple project to assemble.

First up was Liv’s Valentine’s Day photo shoot! I actually caught Liv on a day that she was wearing her little tutu (as a ‘ballerina’ – which rarely happens) and handed her a construction paper heart to play with (I made two which turned out to be the smartest plan because the first was crinkled and torn before I had even pulled out my camera).

Then we shot away!

500 pictures later (in about 45 seconds) and Liv was smiling and standing and carrying the heart in the same photo. I love that middle shot – I always have to take a ton, but it’s always worth it.

Actually this might be my favorite:

We turned it into the little card that we’d send out with the bags:

Ahhh and here’s Liv last Valentine’s Day! One year makes a huge difference.

After processing the photos, I ended up cropping both the bag and photo to make the finished bags just a little smaller.

Then into the bag went a handful of kisses and on the top of the bag a cut rectangle of a pretty paper (from the scrapbooking aisle) that was folded in half. You could easily staple the top directly onto the clear bag as well, but I tried something new for a seamless look this time around with glue.

Finished!

I couldn’t decide on which pose I loved best, so I made several of each:

Here’s the entire project in one quick collage:

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This is a favorite and easy project in our house, we’ve made them for Mother’s Day (which I referenced above here) but you could use them for parties (they make great favor ‘thank you’ bags) or as treats for school. You could really add any image (be it a favorite photo, paper, fabric square, etc) as the backdrop or even leave it blank as a clear bag. Use a solid piece of paper at the top to include a little message, too! And we’ve also filled these with miscellaneous goodies such as confetti or glitter just for added fun.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! Here’s a quick link to search by all heart-day related posts.

Travel Adventures in Spain: Granada

Oh man it’s been too long since I’ve shared stories from our family trip last year (which was four whole months ago, I can’t believe it), but I didn’t ever really finish sharing our adventures and I wanted to take a few posts to do so.

I can feel the memories slowly slip away… and I know that if I don’t capture them in writing right now that soon they will be gone. The little memories – like where we stayed, our favorite foods and what we loved about various towns – not so much the big ones which are definitely there to stay. The second reason is that I’ve received some emails from readers who are planning their own upcoming adventures to Ireland, Spain or Morocco and it’s high time I be as helpful as I can.

For those of you needing a quick catch up, you can check out this post. Our little family of three – contrary to popular believe, 20-month-olds can be great travelers! – embarked on a four week getaway (read about how we managed our small budget here) and have already shared our travel adventures in Ireland - complete with Liv jigs (here’s a round up of where we visited, where we stayed, etc) and half of our Spanish road trip as well. I’ll try to sprinkle in these last few posts on Spain and Morocco throughout the usual going ons around here, and I thought that today would be an excellent day to start.

Last we left off we had celebrated with Festival La Merce in Barcelona and were road tripping down the coast of Spain through a Paradores and Valencia. Let’s jump back on track with our trip to Granada.

We were fortunate enough to book the very sweet B&B Solar Montes Claros in the heart of old Granada. The courtyard (despite the rain) was beautiful, the rooms inviting, the style very authentic. Granada rooms are hard to come by last minute (this stop was part of our ‘go with the flow’ road trip portion of the trip) and I might give myself a few weeks for a reservation the next time around.

Nevermind the snack stains, Liv’s photoshoot as she checked the place out for herself was priceless.

We had only one night in this beautiful (but crazy) city of winding roads, industry and white washed walls. I recommend keeping it all in El Albayzín – the original Granada – and of course a visit to the Alhambra shouldn’t be missed.

There are three well known dinner-dance shows in the old town, one of which lined up with our schedule and arrival into the city perfectly. Ahhh what beautiful dance Flamenco is! You can’t miss out on the stomping and passion and melodic guitar strings.

Torre del Oro is a show that came highly recommended to us. Jardines de Zoraya ended up being ideal for a family though with plenty of room near the back for Liv to dance her own passionate number to the music.

The singers were also incredible.

Walking the old city was wonderful. There’s hardly room for cars (though they manage) and much of the shops are accessible only by climbing the steep cobblestone streets.

By the time we arrived at the Alhambra we were greeted with buckets of rain! I think maybe the one full day of rain in Spain, but we made the best of it.

The rain turned off and on and off again as we weaved through the incredible gardens and Moorish architecture of this 10th century palace. The fortress-turned-castle was conquered and reconquered many times over its long and lengthy life, but the original Berber Islamic architecture is ever present (and became even more recognizable after our trip down to Morocco where we found similar structures).

Liv, the photographer. The girl LOVES to shoot photos, the iPhone being her camera of choice.

A view of Granada from up high on the hill at the Alhambra.

If you plan a visit, make sure that you reserve your tickets several days (or even weeks in the high season) in advance as they sell out quickly each day. I was able to secure next day tickets by calling the box office directly even when the website said sold out (we ended up being able to change our visit date thanks to this little fluke, though we had to purchase two sets of tickets since they are non refundable).

Once you arrive, you’ll have to pick up your tickets from Will Call which may be on the other side of the huge palace. We entered on the west end and didn’t realize that our tickets were on the east end (and a 20 minute walk away) until we were there, thankfully we were about 45 minutes early. Arrive as early as possible .

Beautiful! Also worth a trip while visiting the Albambra is Generalife, if you don’t have a toddler and it’s not raining, that is.

Shortly after, we hopped back into our little speed wagon and headed for Sevilla. One day was far too short to truly enjoy Granada, but hopefully we’ll be back.

Next up on the travel list? Sevilla and then Marrakesh, Morocco.

PS More on our Ireland + Spain + Morocco trip right here.

Liv’s 2nd Birthday: Paper Favor Pouches

One of my favorite, super-quick-to-throw-together ideas from Liv’s party was to create little favor pouches for gummy bears to hand out to all of the kids on their way home.

I didn’t get a very clear photo of the treat bags at the actual party, but here’s the gist on how we put them together:

The grey arrows indicate where a piece of double sided tape was added to adhere two sides together. The pouches were popping open after a while, so I might try something stronger than plain old sticky tape next time. Maybe even cute staples or scrapbooking tape + a dab of glue in a few key areas (such as the corners).

They were a cute and easy addition to the party! And we literally made them as people were walking in (and as it dawned on me that I had meant to put favor bags together but had completely forgotten about them… luckily I remembered a few variations of this idea on Pinterest - not to mention those cool popsicles that used to be sold out of similar pouches when I was a kid – and happened to have paper and pink candy on hand!). Big thanks to my brother and friend Trish (the invaluable party co-preppers) for helping me assemble.

More pictures from Liv’s 2nd birthday right here, and you can filter all party ideas posted on the blog by theme here!

PS this would be very cute for Valentine’s Day treats, don’t you think?