Makin' My List and Checking It Twice

What? Yes, I know we haven't even had Halloween yet but, but...
About this time every year I get crackin' on my Christmas gift list. I put my ear to the rail and start listening for those little clues and start planning what we will gift to our family and friends this year. I'm not a big shopper so the planning is key for me. Once I figure out what we are giving I'm cool with the shopping part.
Each year I put together some sort of little list system to keep track of the ideas, items checked off, sizes needed, coupons, receipts, etc. Some years it's as simple as a stack of index cards in a pretty envelope. Other years I have decorated the cover on a little spiral notebook. Whatever I make will be pretty battered by the end of the year from dozens of trips in and out of my purse so I consider them ephemeral in nature.

I always save the holiday cards I receive in case I might make something out of them someday (big sigh) so this year I pulled out a pretty Christmas card to use as the covers.

I cut some vintage ledger paper to size, folded them in half, and used a simple three-hole pamphlet stitch to bind them into a little book.

The inside of the card had writing so I glued a piece of scrapbook paper inside the front cover and sewed a red envelope inside the back cover. I used the text boxes in Microsoft Word to create small name labels with red borders and glued them to the inside pages.

An easy little project that took about an hour and I'm ready to start making my list and checking it twice!