Chocolate Belly Band for Blokes

Technique:  Papercraft

Stamps & Images:
Sitting Santa Flippin Decoupage

Pens and Inks:
Peeled Paint Distress Ink

Papers:
American Crafts Crimson Weave
We R Memory Keepers White Christmas
sports pages from the newspaper

For the longest time I was a Christmas Grinch.  I hated Christmas, I felt the yearly ritual of buying socks, jocks and chocolate was a farce.  Office parties, end of school get togethers, Secret Santa, I hated it all.

That has all changed now, and I realized that for me, if I gave a meaningless gift (generic junk or gift cards) then the gesture was meaningless because I wasn't giving of myself, I was only giving of my wallet, and I begrudged the financial obligation.

So now, I love gifts that I can make quickly and easily, that don't break the budget, but have meaning for both myself and the recipient.  It's doubly good if I can give something that makes the recipient laugh or smile, because that's the best gift of all :o)

I am going to make a stash of these chocolate belly bands for last minute gifts, stocking stuffers and basket fillers, door and raffle prize donations and secret santa swaps.  The construction itself is very simple, intentionally so, I wanted these to be quick to make, easy to give and fun to receive. 

The image I chose features Santa having "a break" while reading the paper, so I picked up on the paper theme and carried that throughout the project.  Santa is placed on a "naughty or nice" list taken from a We R Memory Keepers paper called White Christmas. The edges have been inked with Peeled Paint distress ink before being placed on a red belly band which is slipped over a block of chocolate that has been wrapped in the sports pages from the weekend paper, giving this a distinctly masculine feel.

On the back is the sentiment which reads:

Thanks for looking and I hope your sense of humour is as warped as mine and you got a good giggle out of this :o)

Challenges:
Winter Wonderland:  Santa Clause is Coming to Town
Totally Gorjuss:  It's a Man Thing 
Cards for Men:  Anything but a square 
The Corrosive Challenge Blog:  Funny or Punny