A Gift Basket State of Mind

You can pretty much throw anything into a basket and it immediately becomes a gift – well…maybe not ANYTHING, but you know what I mean!

I am a big fan of gift baskets as a hostess present, so a few weeks ago when I attended a luncheon at a friend’s house, I jumped at the opportunity to create a homemade gift basket featuring a few new recipes and of course some creative stamping!

For the basket, I did something that I’d never done before – I baked homemade bread, made butter and whipped up some homemade strawberry preserves! Yep – that’s right – this city girl channeled her inner Laura Ingalls Wilder and I’m loving the result!

Check it out…

I was completely beside myself when the bread came out of the oven and actually looked.like.bread! And it tasted delish too! Just call me Martha!

…drooling?

So, when it came time to package up everything for my gift basket, I pulled out my Papertrey Ink stamps (which, I haven’t used much of lately) and got to stamping!

Luckily, PTI has a TON of great stamps that are perfect for food packaging. Here’s what I did…

First up – the bread! I wrapped it in Saran wrap as well as cellophane then dressed it up with the Half & Half dies and stamps along with Everyday Treats, Limitless Layers dies and a bit of raffia ribbon.

For the jar of jam, I simply stamped a piece of computer paper with Background Basics: Gingham to create the look of a bit of cloth. To finish dressing up the jar, I used Everyday Treats, Tiny Tags, Fruitful and Friendship Jar – don’t you love how all the sets come together so seamlessly?!

If you’re gonna have jam, you’ve gotta have butter right? I created a log of honey butter and packaged it in some parchment paper. For this adorable label, I die cut the Banner die and stamped it with the plaid patterned stamp from Half & Half. Then, I used the oval border stamp from Little Labels along with images from Tea for Two Additions to create the perfect label!

Last up – a tin of freshly ground coffee: the perfect accompaniment to bread, butter and jam! This came together with PTI’s Background Basics: Gingham, Limitless Layers: Ovals and the coffee mug image from Warm Happiness.

Of course, there had to be a simple coordinating card for this gift, which I created using Garden Variety, Fruitful, Turning a New Leaf and the Picnic Plaid Impression Plate.