more gorgeous gift wrapping ideas here. (link via design mom)

Easy Gift wrap Ideas

I saw these really easy and inexpensive gift wrap ideas on the Better Homes and Gardens website. I am sure I will try these out myself at home. For the children's art idea, there are so many more options out there. Painted hand prints on paper would look so cute too.
1: Festive words printed in repetition on plain paper
2: Children's art

Holiday decor and patterns from Benefit

My friend B pointed out these free gorgeous downloads from Benefit: patterned wallpapers, gift tags, party invitations and more. Get out some nice card stock and start printing away!

Trick or Treat

This was my first 'proper' Halloween since I was a kid and I had fun dressing my girl up, buying Halloween treats to give out and attending Halloweeny events. Sometimes I love it how here in America, celebrations are so over-commercialized. This year I enjoyed it through my toddler.
For the past few years, I've always associated Halloween with Unicef's Orange Boxes, used for collecting change while trick or treating and then sending it off as a donation to Unicef.

This year I ordered a box (they send them to you for free) and was happy to see my friends emptying their change into it. Unicef really makes fundraising like this so easy. They send you a package with so much information (along with goodies like Halloween greeting cards and stickers to share around) and once you are done collecting your change, simply empty your coins into a Coinstar machine, pick the Unicef donation option on it and then send them off your receipt. How simple is that? I'm looking forward to emptying my orange box out this weekend!

Note to self: get a head start on this next year, and give out a few boxes to friends to fill up or ask them to order their own kits from Unicef...