The big day is rapidly approaching and my out of town guest bags are complete. (We are going on  a cruise so everyone is an out of town guest)

They were a labor of love but they turned out really well. They are loaded and overstuffed. We have to have a friend drive them down to the port as our luggage and the bags won't fit into my SUV without smushing them!


So here are the masterpieces...

The bag is a woven raffia/ paper. It is really light weight and has two open pockets on the front. It zips across the top. The logo was from a graphic designer on Etsy. It was transferred onto the bags. I attached a laminated personalized luggage tag with a ribbon. 

I loaded the bags to the gills with all of this swag...

 The swag included an organza bag full of gourmet-ish, beach friendly snacks.  In my opinion, organza bags always make things (even Swedish fish) seem fancier. These are jumbo sized and I purchased them on ebay from a seller who only sells organza bags. Who knew that was a viable business model?

Here are the contents of the snack bag, which includes Pirate's Booty, any type of fish candy that I could source and my chocolate cruise ships which were a total pain in my bootie.

Here is a little pencil case which I thought would be helpful to throw in a beach bag. It is not waterproof but heavy duty and water resistant.

 Inside, there is a mesh bag which is perfect for toting back sandy or wet stuff from the beach and to take laundry home from the cruise. There is also sunscreen, spf lip balm and a fab hair tie in it.

One of my favorite parts about cruising is that it is far too expensive to text or use cell phones. This means, we will back to old fashioned writing to tell each other where we are. The note on top of this cute memo board says "Leave a note so your cabin mate knows where you are... (Unless you don't want to be found)". It has an attached marker and eraser and a ribbon holder.

I sourced giant scarves/sarongs at a boutique.   These are the perfect weight for summer and can be worn as scarfs, shawls, dresses or skirts. I included a little paper which shows ways to tie it. I threw in an organza bag so it is like a little sarong kit! I got several different colors/patterns so we won't all look like twins.

I found these cute rubber horns which are ipod/iphone speakers. Great for tunes in the cabin or by the pool!

I also bought beaded bracelets and clutches at the merchandise mart. The bracelets are all different and the clutches are different colors. These were the least colorful in the bunch but much prettier in person.

I added personalized t-shirts and baseball hats for the men and kids. I have extra in case any of the ladies really want them. I know this crowd and they probably don't. Hint: The prices for personalized t-shirts and hats were all over the place. I checked online and at a bunch of local places. The place that I ended up using is a pretty big local business that  specializes in personalized  t-shirts. They use good quality and offered a small discount if we paid in cash. If you need to print up swag in the future, I would suggest really shopping around. Some of the places that I got quotes from were more than double.

I also have my amenity kits

I've included the contents of the kits underneath this post.

I also included the cute personal note from the guest of honor.

The gift bags  are all sealed in huge clear gift basket bags and ready to go. The kids get different bags. I will try to post about those tomorrow

Appendix: Contents of amenity kit.

More swagger to my swag bags...

Sorry if you've been in suspense. I'm less than two weeks away from the big event and I've been crazy busy.  I wanted to include amenity kits in my swag bags for my cruise guests, but I did not want them to look too craft-projecty.  I wanted them to look like something that I would be excited to see in my stateroom.

I  wrote about the stickers that I made (yes craft project-y) but here is how the final product turned out....

The box is the clear amac box from the container store. It is 3 7/16 square by 6 5/16" tall. They were not cheap but look really nice. Way nicer than anything else I could find.

This is a blurry shot of the top of the box. I promise it looks better in person. 

Now here is what is inside. I have been hunting and gathering stuff for these bags for months so I don't have a running total of what the total cost was and I don't want to know. Neither does my sweet husband who reads my blog !

Cute tissues (target), Adorable girl tweezer , mini lint roller with a cute label (target) Flower nail file

 Little mirror with one side magnifying and one size regular mirror (michael's)

You can't see from the package, but these band-aid have pirates on them. (Amazon), Hand Cream (target) Hand- Santizer and mini flash-light with logo sticker on them. (Dollar tree) As a side note, you should always have a flashlight on you when you travel. If there is a power failure on your ship or in the hotel it is a handy thing to have! 

 Sewing kit (Michaels) and mini advil and wipe

 Chic sleep mask (michaels) and ear plugs! 

I love the results. I will try to post some of the rest of the swag soon! 

Swag Bag Part 2...

I've gone sticker crazy. I wanted to order glossy shaped-stickers with my logo but the cost to make them was more than one ticket for the cruise itself so I figured out how to make them myself! I'm not the craftiest girl so this is very exciting to me. I also don't want these swag bags to look like a craft project gone bad so I'm super excited.

First of all, I took the logo and printed it out on a sheet of paper. I tried to use my printer to print out on glossy paper but it smudged. I took the glossy paper to office depot and for 8 cents a sheet, they copied them for me. The pages don't smudge.

I then cut out the logo and ran them through my xyron 500 sticker maker.  I bought this one sale years ago and never used it. I bought it because I thought the kids could use it for school, but of course, it has sat unused.

The sticker maker puts a permanent adhesive backing on any sheet of paper. It is a fickle little machine but did the trick. I love the results and now want to put my logo stickers on everything! Uh oh.

Opinions wanted...

As my loyal readers may recall, I have a  Bar Mitzvah coming up. Well, my son has the Bar Mitzvah. I'm just paying for it. The ceremony is to be held on a private beach during a cruise.  I am planning great swag bags for my guests who are family and best friends. The swag bags are going along very well and I am starting to obsess over making them fabulous.


So for the next few weeks, bear with me as I discuss these bags which are taking over my house at this point.


A note to my sister who sometimes reads my blog...If you want to be surprised, please stop reading right now. If you want to give your opinion, please do. Everyone else who is not going on the cruise, please chime in with any suggestions and keep checking back as I post other items in the bags

First of all, the bag...

This style bag won out. It is lightweight and cute. I purchased the logo on Etsy. This logo is only on the bags and on the notes that I sent out to the travelers with information. The pirate logo seemed too tough for the bags which will be carried by ladies. The pirate logo is going to be on almost everything else that we give away during the trip.

I wanted  some beach stuff in the swag bag. My guests range in age from 3 to almost 80, so I had to be very generic. Everyone can and should use is Sunscreen, so I put some in this heavy plastic case. It is not waterproof but water resistant and you could throw your seapass/room ticket/boarding pass thing and a few bucks in there.    

What do you think? What else can I put in there that someone would really want on the beach?  I'm sort of stumped. Is is good as is?

I'll post more swag tomorrow! 

Going through the baby photos...

     Generally when one throws a Bar Mitzvah party for her child, there is a slide show to prepare. At some parties, there is a slide show of the guest of honor at various ages with family and friends which plays in the background.  At other Bar Mitzvahs, the parents stop the party all together, turn down the lights and show a long chronological montage of the Bar mitzvah boy from birth to present day. 
     My preference is to have it playing as background art because who really wants to watch 15 minutes of photos from the life of a 13 year old other than the parents and grandparents of said child? This is what I did at my first son's party. This was an easy way to do it as I did not have to edit the photos to songs or cut out any photos. The slide show played during the party and honored my son without boring anyone to death. 
     For my youngest son's upcoming big event, we are going on a family cruise, so unless I can convince Royal Caribbean to play photos of my son on the close circuit televisions in every single one of the 2730 cabins on the ship, I'm not doing a slide show.  This is quite a burden lifted as I have 11,000 photos on my trusty mac and hundreds more in albums and boxes from the pre-digital camera age.
     That being said, I made a personalized photo album from Shutterfly featuring about 20 photos of my son at various ages.  It is a hard cover bound book. I  kept the pages around the photos white and will bring it on the trip and let everyone sign it with well wishes for him. 

     My blog is supposed to be anonymous but no one would recognize this guy today. He is almost as tall as me and his blond hair is now curly and brown.

   The big challenge was narrowing it down to around 20 photos of my son. It was like  Sophie's choice. Especially when it came to Halloween costume photos. Infant in a dog suit (in). Superman with muscles (out). 7 year old elvis complete with white jumpsuit and wig (in of course!).  I got so frustrated last week that I just gave up. How can I pack 13 years of cuteness into one little album.

  

     I promised myself that I would cross this off of my list this weekend so I hunkered down and finished it. My husband was mad that I did not give him final approval before I ordered it but I saw a tear in his eye when I showed him the proof online.

    One down, 7000 more things to do before the big day. Wish me luck that I will get it all done without needing to color out my gray more than once before the trip!