What's in the bag?

Yesterday was Administrative Assistants' Day (read: Secretaries' Day). The two secretaries at the school where I teach are just wonderful, and I wanted to do something special for them. So, I created two identical little gift sets. When I had my Technique Class the other night, someone asked "What's in the bag?" so I thought it would be fun to post the contents here. Plus, let's face it! It's really hard to give away those cute gifts I worked so hard on. At least I'll have the photos to remember that I actually created something original.

The color inspiration, by the way, came from two pieces of coordinating patterned paper by Pebbles, Inc. that I had in my unused stash. I love the color scheme: cool caribbean, tempting turquoise and close to cocoa. It also goes with Kristina's Color Inspiration #4 . Too bad I didn't make this sooner so I could have played along.

Anyway, here's what everyone at class saw. I used two white lunch bags I had on hand already. I decorated the front of the bag using. The horizontal strip of paper is clear embossed using the wheel from SU!'s Spring Solitude hostess set. The main piece is stamped with images from the same set. I used my nestabilities for the scallop and my coluzzle for the matting. The bags are secured with a piece of chocolate chip taffeta ribbon.

Inside the each bag is a gift set of 10 regular sized cards, a cello bag of m&m's topped with matching patterned paper, and a small 3x3 notecard with a message of thanks inside. I packaged each set of cards inside Papertrey Ink's clear plastic boxes. The sentiment on the notecard is from A Little Birthday Cheer (SU!).

Here's a close-up of the cards in the clear box. I made a belly band to wrap around the box and covered the gap with a scalloped monogram, using PTI's Circle Borders & Corners set and the Trajan Monogram Alphabet set.
Here's a close up of the little notecard. Simple, yet perfectly matched!
The entire ensemble is pictured below. Each gift set contained two of each card design.The first card here uses the little bird and small flower cluster from SU!'s Live Your Dream set. The Sentiment is PTI's Mixed Messages. I love the tiny little sentiments in that set!
I think both the bird and swirl branch/leaf images are Inkadinkadoo. The sentiment is from PTI's special one year anniversary set, Simple Little Things. Ribbon is from my LSS.
This main image is Hero Arts, I believe. Ribbon from my LSS. Sentiment from SU!'s Closer than a Memory. Two get the two toned effect on the tree, I inked up the whole stamp with cool caribbean, then used my close to cocoa marker to make the leaves and branches.
This card uses the images from Spring Solitude. Ribbon from one of SU!'s designer packages, from two winter mini's ago. It matches taken with teal.
Here's the bird from one of my current favorite SU! sets, Always. Just love this little one. Greeting from PTI's Simple Little Things.
Well, that's it! This is how I spent most of my weekend, and it's the reason why I'm behind on samples for the May classes. I guess I should go stamp now!!!