The Elves are back in town

I don't often cave to my daughter's whims. I typically can say no without alot of guilt especially if I know saying yes will make me hate life for a solid month. But this time I caved.....I said yes and one month a year I look at my kids and think........how did you get me to agree to this.


I am of course referring to the dreaded loathed self inflicted tradition of the Elves. (all other elf Moms groan collectively in sympathy).

We have been having the month long visit from our elves from 3 years now. My oldest, Mischief, came home from 4K BEGGING, PLEADING, WHINING for an elf of her own after hearing classmates talking all about them. Keep in mind if you will Mayhem had just been born months earlier and I think the combo of sleep deprivation and hormones was my ultimate downfall.

Never make life changing decisions with a newborn in your arms.

So I said we would write to Santa, as her classmates had told her she must do, and see what happens. What happened was I sent Dad to the local toy store that carries these little devils and got not 1 but 2.

Now why I didn't get the elf that just moves spots each night and the kids can't touch was again probably due to no sleep in 4 months and general inability to think but we got the Magic Elf. This elf can be played with, taken places, needs food and water and magic snow to "come alive" each night and play about the house while all the humans sleep. Ha sleep.....with a newborn....funny.

So night after night the elves, Tilly and Duncan, cause little messes, go missing, leave notes on behavior and cause general headaches for Mom and Dad. Now that we are years into this Mayhem even has her own elf and there is no turning back. The elves are loved by the small people of this house so I have decided to try to embrace their invasion presence this year and that began with a special arrival via North Pole Post.

The deal with the elves is the child, or parent if kiddo can't write yet, must write to Santa every year to ask for the elves to come back. So clearly the second the pumpkin pie was served on Thanksgiving the paper came out and Mischief wrote the letter requesting the return of our 3 little trouble makers.

I would love to say I immediately remembered where I hid the elves last year but I didn't. I honestly had no idea where they were so when the 1st of Dec came and went with no elves I knew I had to come up with a special reason they were late on arrival.

I had seen this AMAZING blog post from Melissa at the Silhouette School blog. She made these ridiculously cute Santa bags using her Silhouette, heat transfer vinyl and lots of creativity. While I didn't have time to do something this elaborate to announce the elves arrival I was inspired by the look of the post office marks.

So I got a simple cardboard box, placed the elves lovingly inside and got to work.

 

our elves need to work on their penmanship

I am a self proclaimed wrapping paper hoarder so I grabbed some cute but generic print and wrapped up the box.

I then went to my trusty Silhouette machine to add some embellishments and make it look like it had just been dropped off from the man in red himself.

I found some great print and cut files in the Silhouette store done by Amanda McGee and Samantha Walker, got some white sticker paper and turned an ordinary box into something right out of Santa's workshop.

It didn't take much to arrange the one large label and the postmark on the design page in Silhouette Studio. I had to draw a box around the post mark because I wanted it to look like a stamp and not cut around all the wavy lines but be printed on a solid paper. I made sure to select cut edge on each design so that none of the interior parts would be cut out. I found some cute little reindeer clip-arts, filled them with green and cut those out also just to dress up the package a little.I used the text tool to add the girls names so that they knew this wasn't just another UPS delivery.

BE SURE to turn on your registration marks BEFORE printing so that your Silhouette machine can read the places to cut your stickers.

names have been blacked out. 

Then it was as simple as loading the sticker paper in the printer, hitting print, placing the printed sticker page on the Silhouette cutting mat and loading it into the machine and hitting cut.

So here ya go. I had to add some red ribbon because without it the box just looked to dull and Santa is anything but dull. I like that it wasn't perfect. I mean it did come all the way from the North Pole some uneven wrapping is to be expected.

I placed it outside the front door as I left to pick the girls up from school so it would be waiting when we arrived back home.

Mischief noticed it as soon as we pulled in the drive and since she can read now she said, "Mom I think that box has our names on it!" We walked to the door and they had a FIT when they realized this one was for them. An even BIGGER fit ensued when Mischief read where this package was from. They ran inside and tore it open to reveal our little guests.

All in all I would say their late arrival was forgiven by this special presentation. Mischief said, "well this is why they were late, they mailed themselves this year." Mayhem resounded with a "this is SO cool."

So here we go again. Night after night our little friends will do something "magical" and light up the mornings for 2 little girls. What are your holiday traditions? Do you have elf visitors? I would love to have some new ideas for what the little buggers can do. Merry Christmas.