RAK Christmas Gift Bag

From 1st December onwards I start to wear my Christmas earrings and brooches.  Each year I add a few items to the stash!  I've also got several festive headbands and that collection grew a lot this year!
 
At Wilko we have non uniform days to raise money for the charity our store is supporting that year.  The manager heard a colleague commenting on my Christmas earrings and came over to have a look.  I mentioned my collection of festive headbands and said I supposed I could only wear those on non uniform days.  Happily, our lovely manager assured me I could wear my headbands every day in the run up to Christmas - so a perfect opportunity to add some new ones to the collection!

Quite often I'm asked why I'm the only cashier wearing one - I reply I'm the only one daft enough to own any and actually wear them!  It's a bit of festive fun and it's great if it brings a smile to a customer's face at this stressful time of year!  My colleague Anastasia loves Christmas so much and she always comments on my festive gear and she's been borrowing headbands so it's not just me now!

I went into our local fabric shop and found some lovely iron on felt Christmas shapes which I thought would make fun brooches.  I bought a few and used my hot glue gun to attach brooch bars to the back of the shapes.  Two of the shapes came in packs of two so I decided I'd give the extras as a RAK gift to Anastasia.  I glued some patterned paper to the front of a gift bag and added a decorated die cut square to the bag with a mini clothes peg.

Here's a closer look.

I stamped another sentiment on the back of the square.

Here's the two brooches that were inside the bag.  Anastasia loved them!  

We had a non uniform weekend at the beginning of December to support our charity this year which is Canine Partners.  I wore my felt reindeer brooch, a headband with bauble bedecked antlers and I had a string of coloured lights wrapped round me for good measure!  On the Saturday we had a cake stall, card making for kids and a guess how many sweeties were in the jar competition.  Also, some Canine Partners dogs came into the store with their owners, trainers and puppy parents which was absolutely lovely.  The dogs made a huge difference to the fund raising for sure!  I was in my element running the cake stall - and getting to know the dogs! 

I chatted to one of our regular customers, Andy, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair.  Andy comes in with his assistance dog, Peggy, a very sweet black labrador.  It was so interesting to hear what these dogs do for their disabled human partners - they're amazing!  It was a really fun day and we made almost £300 for Canine Partners so it was a win/win!  Lots of photos were taken on the day and I was surprised a few days later to see that we were featured in the local newspaper - fame at last! 😊

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Tin of Tags' set
CS: white paper gift bag, SU! Crumb Cake & Whisper White 
Patterned paper: SU! 'Warmth & Cheer' DSP
Ink: SU! Real Red
Tools: SU! 'Stitched Shapes' Framelits die set, Poppystamps 'Valley Snowflakes' die
Embellishments & accessories: SU! mini clothes peg, rhinestone jewels