Following the thought

We were painting with the baby porcupine today. It was the cutest thing ever :) After we each claimed our paintings we had some left over. Dr Ferretti had been helping out Dr Lewis lately so I asked Denise if she could have one too. She said that would be good. Yay! I had been taking pictures while the baby was painting and I got a really good shot of him with paint all over so I thought I would print off the picture and put it in with the paintings. I went to get the photos printed after work and had some time to kill so I thought I would go over to Michael's Crafts and maybe get a cute little frame for Dr Ferretti's painting and one for mine. As I was walking into the store one of the voices in my head suggested we get a pretty little envelope to put the photo in to go with the soon to be framed painting. We unanimously agreed that was a good idea and made a bee line for the paper section. After debating over glossy vs matte and red vs blue I decided on sparkly silver. On to the frames. I had the painting with me so I started holding it up to EVERY frame they had. I didn't like one of them so I thought "maybe if I got a cute little box (like an over sized scarf box) it would be perfect." So I went over to where the gift wrap was. No small flat box that would work. Hmmm. Feeling a little defeated and not wanting to just hand Dr Ferretti a little canvas I thought I'd look around. My mom always told me presentation is everything! So just tossing the painting in a dumb little bag with some cheap tissue paper was beneath me. I found myself in the isle with the Christmas ornaments. I LOVE giving ornaments no matter the time of year. They always look cute tied to the wrapping of a gift. I didn't want to make it look holiday-ish. Just a thank you cause your awesome gift. But the glittery little snowflake was way to perfect...and it is cold outside. Now what do I tie it to? Not a gift bag! When me and mom would bake we would use baskets to hold all the baked goodness and I would attach the ornaments to the baskets. Off to the basket isle. The Christmas baskets were very cute but the snowflake was as holiday as I was willing to go. I found a square wicker basket with a little chalk board on the front. Perfect! Now I need some chalk. White or colored? Same price. Colored. The basket is too big for just the painting and the photo...I need a filler...hmmm. What would work? As I was walking around the store thinking I saw that Michael's was carrying Ghirardelli chocolate chips for the holidays. Those make good chocolate chip cookies! Mom also told me stick with what your good at and it just so happens I can bake the shit out of some chocolate chip cookies! Cookies make good fillers! That's what I should do! COOKIES! I will also need some of that scrunchy paper filler too. Having added that to my basket I thought "what should I put the cookies in?" "a tin perhaps?" I went back to the wrapping department. One of the voices in my head pointed out that a tin wouldn't fit right in the basket. Besides, all the cookie tins are holiday themed right now. That leaves cellophane treat bags. It took forever to find them amongst all the damn holiday shit. Finally found what I had in mind and it came with silver bag ties AND there were "Home Made" stickers right next to them! SCORE! But presentation is everything so I will need to be putting ribbons on the bags. On to the ribbon isle. I was trying to balance the now full basket in one arm and the painting in that hand and match ribbon colors to the painting with the other hand. People were staring. I decided on red. Red always looks good. So I checked out and headed over to pick up the photos and go home to bake. I am now very pleased with myself. My mother would be proud. :)