New Year's Wish Basket

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Okay, do you have a friend or neighbor that you didn't get a gift for Christmas, but now you think it might have been a good idea to do so? Or are you just in the mood to give something to someone as a little token of celebrating the New Year? Here is an idea I came up with at the 11th hour when I realized I had 10 extra people to buy gifts for on Christmas Eve. Yikes!

I decided to give them a Wish Basket for the New Year. This includes a handful of little things that I either bought (inexpensively) or made, and attached creative little notes to.

First off, I totally stole Crunchy Chicken's idea for a candy cane sugar scrub. Basically, you take a few candy canes (about six per scrub) and crush them up to a fine powder. I don't have a rolling pin, so I used a jar of molasses.


Mix with a cup of sugar and about half a cup of olive oil (Crunchy also recommends almond oil) and about 5-10 drops of peppermint oil. (This helps mask the smell of the olive oil.) I put a bit of vitamin E in too, although it's not necessary, and it's a pain if you only have it in gel capsules!

I then put them in small mason jars and used Scrapblog to create cool little labels for them:


On top of the jar I put this label:

I also put a bottle of wine or champagne in the basket with this label:


And some cookies in a jar or bag with this label:


For the religiously inclined, I included an angel:



You can see I lined the baskets with kitchen towels that read Peace. (Got those at the dollar store, along with the angels and jars, wine bags, etc.)

Even though it was tough having all those extra people to buy for, it ended up fairly easy once I got the idea. I just had to buy in multiples.



I ended up giving a basket to each of my next door neighbors yesterday, as a show of good will on New Year's Day. Obviously, the possibilities are endless as to what you can put into the baskets, and you can tailor them for any holiday, birthday, or other occasion.