Never show up empty-handed.

Happy Day, Ladies!

This is Michelle back for another few months of sharing and creating with Simply Renee - and I couldn't be more tickled about that! What I'm sharing with you today stems from something I learned from my beloved Yaya (grandmother) from when I was a little girl. And it's quite simple: never show up empty-handed. Whether you're going to visit someone who is sick, stopping by to visit over tea, or you've been invited over for dinner, they are welcoming you in to their home - so you should never show up empty-handed.

So I grew up with that instilled in me. The other thing I've grown up with is about frugality. My mother was a single parent so we had to be creative sometimes as we never had money to just go out and buy a birthday present for someone. And now that I'm grown up and my husband and I have fairly good jobs and are fortunate enough to provide a nice living for our children, I'm still cheap frugal....very. Because you never know when you're going to lose your job. Or when the refrigerator is going to stop working and you'll have that additional expense.

So long story short - I still believe in never showing up empty-handed, but I do it on the cheap. What I have to share with you today are some quick and easy - and inexpensive - goodie bags that I whipped up using these fun windowed coffee bags.

I buy jelly beans on clearance after Easter and save them for little kid treat things. They're colorful, they're bite size, and they are loaded with sugar - all the things that make kiddies happy, right? *giggles* So I embellished my white windowed coffee bag with some papers and stickers from Echo Park Paper, stamped a quick little taggie, poured in 3 bags of jelly beans (to the tune of 30-cents total), and I was done. 30-cents for the jelly beans and 59-cents for the bag = a fun, sweet, and easy gift for only 89-cents (don't tell me you don't have loads of paper and ribbon and stickers in your stash so you better not go out and buy that for this lil' project!).

My second gift bag is for our grown-up friends. I embellished this kraft windowed coffee bag with more papers and stickers from Echo Park Paper and topped my bow with some pretty pins. I filled it up with 1/2 a bag of big pretzels that I stocked up on with coupons at 49-cents a bag. So this gift was 25-cents for my pretzels and 55-cents for my bag = 80-cents to offer something when you are greeted at the door. Isn't that fun?

Heartfelt and handcrafted does not need to cost a fortune - nor does it need to take a lot of time. You just can't put a price on thoughtfulness!

~ Michelle