Holiday Gifting: QVC Harry London chocolates and filling gift bags

November 20, 2013
 
Every year I buy a tin of the Harry London Chocolates that are offered on QVC to add to stockings and to make up little candy bags to go along with other gifts I may be giving.  Most often, the tins are large and decorated with some holiday theme and occasionally I have purchased the additional offers that Harry London has for both Valentines Day and Easter also part of the sale price.
 
They normally come in 6 pound sizes and there are normally 200+ pieces of candy.
This year, they offered a Value of the Day which consisted of 5 metal house shaped tins filled with assorted candies.  Now down to 5 pounds and less pieces than before...much less and the price went up at least $5. - 16.00.  Of course as with everything now, you pay more to get less. 
 

But the tins were cute and I thought they too, either filled with these candies {assorting them and making sure each tin had some of all flavors} or adding something else to them, they would make cute gifts wrapped in cello paper and big colorful bows  (or shelf toppers for me).

Five gifts for those people you aren't sure what to buy but you know they love chocolates. 

But my candies will be going to fill 27 gift boxes for B&BW girls gift bags. I grabbed the little jewel colored food boxes on clearance after Halloween and while they are perfect to use as is, I planned on wrapping them to make the bags all look the same.
I was glad the candies arrived
today to get a jump start on getting the bags filled.

I like to keep my eyes open throughout the year for things that are on clearance that I may or may not use right away.  One of the things I found was at a Gertrude Hawk Candy store.  It was a huge, heavy roll of blue wrapping paper that they use to wrap the candy boxes for Easter.  When they were done with using it for that holiday, they Clearance the roll for $6.00.  It is great paper and while at the time I had no idea what I would be using it for, I thought it was too good to pass up.

Another thing I like to be sure to have on hand are stickers.  Yes, I am a child at heart and I do love stickers of all kinds.  So at the end of the year when the company called Colorful Images puts their holiday address labels on clearance for pennies almost, I try and stock up on all different patterns. 
Keep in mind, you can put ANYTHING you wish on a label so while some may have an address on, others have special notations for food gift giving. 
These round labels were perfect to add the note, " A gift for you"  and the colors fit perfectly with the colored gift wrappings I went with this year.


That whimsical theme B&BW chose for their Holiday Traditions really fit in with the colors of papers out in the Hallmark store as well as the Gertrude Hawk paper.

As luck had it I was able to get some Yankee candles on sale for a $1.00 each to use as package tie ons.  And Chapstick brand put out their Gingerbread Kiss and Peppermint chapsticks for $1.00 too.

 Ulta just had their $1.00 item sale so I am waiting on some lip glosses, hand creams, mud masks and face wipes to add to the bags. 

 I love checking out Michaels Craft stores for those impulse $1.00 items in the aisle on the way to the registers for other little do dads. Grocery list tablets, greeting cards, pens, journals all make for very useful bag fillers.
 

NYX brand made a large set of mini bottles of nail polish that also have found their way into some bags.   I will be adding some pocketbacs in holiday scents
And I wrapped up almost all of the free for 50,000 points APP FFM gift B&BW sent me to share in the festive paper and used tiny heart pink colored stickers I got on clearance after last Valentines day at Michaels (Martha Stewart brand)   to put the names on the bottoms of each bottle of FFM.  Like I mentioned before, I could exchange them all for either merchandise credits or other scents that I do like...but I felt it would be in poor taste so sharing was a better option for me.

Each girl can pick a bag and she then can determine for herself if she wants to keep the FFM or exchange it
 with someone else for a different scent. As soon as the other items get here I will tie each bag up with wide pink satin ribbon and deliver them to my favorite store.