Welcome Baskets

Now that we've lived here a week, we thought it was time to meet our neighbors. Dale had the chance to shake hands with our two next door neighbors, but I had not. We wanted to make it a little more formal. So we put together these fun welcome baskets, and went knocking on the doors of our four closest neighbors.

I drew some inspiration from Pinterest, then put my own spin on the ideas. I gathered the items and put them together, starting with a popcorn bucket from Dollar Tree as the base of the basket.

I found these blank notes that say "hello" in a bunch of funky colors. The message was right, but those colors! Blech. Wish I could have found cards in red & white ... or more like me, made some. But my Studio isn't set up yet for creative work, so we made do with what we could find.

Together we came up with what to write in the cards. Dale's the one with the great handwriting. (He used to be a graphic artist. Did you know that?)

Next I propped up a box of microwave popcorn in one corner.

And a candle in another. We bought the candles in Post Falls before we left. They smell heavenly of huckleberries. I bought candle holders, and wrapped them in the aromatic purple paper from Huckleberry Thicket. I tied the paper to the candle holder with silver Christmas tinsel. Then I nested the candle in some white tissue paper and snugged it into the candle holder. (Wish I'd taken a photo of that).

The final touch was the gift tag in the shape of a house ... red house with white trim to mimic the popcorn bucket.

I must say, it felt awfully good to make a creative project again. I've been missing this kind of handicraft!

We delivered the baskets one at a time. Both of our next door neighbors were home. We were invited inside to one and met the kids and dogs. Gosh, what nice people. The 9 year old daughter is learning to embroider! I told her we'd be good friends. The kids gave Dale and me a gift of handmade salt-dough Christmas ornaments. So sweet.

Our neighbors across the street weren't home. We did meet the teen at one home. The other neighbor was at work, but he has a "Ring" doorbell camera, so we got to wave and explain who we are to him over the speaker. We left the gift on the porch.

I love that we are starting off on good terms with our neighbors this way. We hope to build deep roots here.