Day 1: Getting warmed up...

Okay, I admit I was so excited about my Christmas shopping challenge that I started working on it today (July 30). I bought gifts for my sister as well as one of my sisters-in-law. It was so thrilling to buy these first gifts that I also made a stop at Hallmark for some pretty wrapping paper. PROBLEM: Hallmark doesn't carry Christmas wrap on July 30. SOLUTION! Wedding wrap with beautiful red ribbon. I don't know about you, but I have become very fond of real ribbon. Fabric ribbon (not the cheesy drugstore type) looks so rich and beautiful. PROBLEM: Hallmark did have a lovely selection of pastel fabric ribbon, but there was no red ribbon. SOLUTION! My local Wal-Mart has a huge selection of fabric ribbon in the crafting section. And there are 15 yards of it on the spool I bought (not the typical 4 yards you find in the gift wrap section). Look at the beautiful results of using a wedding pattern with red fabric ribbon!

Now, you may have already started asking yourself if I've got some kind of system in place for keeping track of which gifts I have bought and which ones I still need to buy. At this point, I have a monthly calendar, and I plan to have a master list of recipients as well. Because I hope to buy or make at least one gift each day, I will be writing down what I bought or made each day directly on the calendar. Obviously, the calendar will need to be kept hidden from prying eyes, but aside from that issue, it's a simple system. Here's my calendar so far:

I have to keep the writing hidden from my gift recipients, so I blurred out the contents the July 30 square. On the left panel of the calendar is a great place for my master list of recipients. At this point, I've only listed the two lucky ladies for whom I have already shopped. So far, so good...