Each year my husband’s very big family hosts a Reunion. They hold a raffle each time, to help raise money for the next reunion. Prizes are a mix of handmade items, and themed gift baskets. Usually I make something (like last year’s Rose Garden Quilt), but this year, with my arm in a brace, I wasn’t able to craft anything. My very kind SIL @Jennalou came up one day in June to help me get some errands done, so we took a chance to go to Home Goods and let the Universe inspire us on what to make. I kept seeing yellow items, that made me think of the Box of Sunshine Swaps, so a Basket of Sunshine was born. Some of the items include elderflower lemonade, honey sesame sticks, lemon olive oil, churro popcorn, lemon almonds, meringues, wafers, and hard candies, and some silk sunflowers I found at PopShelf. I had the basket, and yellow tissue in my stash.
After that I just kept looking around. I I ran into several asian food items, in shades of blue/purple, including a ramen bowl with chop sticks and topping sauce, a Hello Kitty taro bobo tea kit, some taro mochi, 4 packets of mild chicken ramen, taro cream filled wafers, and some Jelly Belly beans in boba tea flavors. After that, I went a bit nuts. I found the basket at Goodwill for $3, but it was a sickly, faded country-goose blue, so I spray painted it black. Then I checked out PopShelf and one of the many Asian grocery stores in town to find a few more goodies to add in, like Blueberry Pocky sticks, Lonely God puffed snacks in an unknown flavor, braised pork pringles, taro chips, rice topping, hibiscus popping boba tea, Milk Tea flavored KitKats, and a ‘build your own’ ramen candy set, where you make all the food components then assemble them into a ramen ‘meal’. I made signs in Affinity, and had them printed at Walgreens Photo.
Little Ada won a crocheted afghan that she’s been snuggling under a lot, and I won a S’more’s making kit!