The Care Package Project: June

I'll bet you thought I forgot all about our June Care Package Project now, didn't you?

I remembered, all right, it's just that I kept forgetting to ask my mother for her cousin's address. Because that's who we're CPP-ing this month: A woman we've never met who lives in Wisconsin.

Seems a weird choice, maybe, but here's the thing: Everyone on my mom's side of the family is kind of enamored with the fact that Johanna is named after Grandma Johanna (in my case, my great-great grandmother) because she was A Wonderful Lady, and cousin Nancy (kind of confusing because my mother is also a Nancy) is no different. She likes to send Johanna random packages containing things like books special ordered from Scandinavia just because her name is in the title.

So, I mean, if some lady is sending your kid books titled "Johanna" from across the sea for kicks, I think the least you can do is properly thank her with a package of her own.

I wanted to do something that focused on local products because hello, Wisconsin. We have all kinds of options here, including very bad vodka and very good coffee. And we're got artisans all over the dang place, which opens up soap / candle / ceramic options.

El contents.

After much consideration, here's what we ended up with:

Locally made ceramic candle holder
Locally made cinnamon beeswax candle
Lavender sachet from the farm down the street
Bath salts
A small tin of lip balm made in my kitchen
A set of Johanna's notecards
A cute little basket to put it all in

Close-up of the candle and ceramic holder. I'm a big fan of both.

But here's the thing (and I feel slightly sheepish for admitting this): I had the candle and candle holder already, purchased pre-minimalism. They're both locally made and quite new looking, and I figured that as I would actually buy these items again in this very condition for this very package, it would be okay to regift.

Is that tacky or environmentally sound? I'm hoping it's the latter.

Putting it all together.

So with my "big" gift covered, I filled out the rest of the basket with, as it turned out, more stuff I had around the house. The notecards are new (ha), as is the lip balm (made a fresh batch with this package in mind, although I did reuse a tin). Johanna made the bath salts for me for a Mother's Day gift a year or so ago (it's hard to fit in a bathtub when you're 6-feet tall. I don't even bother), and the sachet was something Abby was given when she worked at the neighboring lavender farm's festival last summer. It still smells lovely and she willingly donated it to the cause. And I've been holding onto the basket for years with this very purpose in mind.

I had Johanna draw another little card to include as well--I thought that might be a hit--and sent a short note thanking Nancy for thinking of Jo and sending her such thoughtful gifts. Because you know what? That is just nice.

Jo's figures never fail to make me smile.

So that's June. I have high hopes I will not be as negligent about the Project next month, but, since this is me and all, maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up too high after all.

P.S. Remember our May Care Package Project? Our nephew didn't end up receiving it until about three weeks later--after he was home from college. I'm not sure what happened, and I have no idea how the package even found him after all that time, but hey, apparently aside from some squishy doughnuts, the contents all came through okay. I'm just glad he finally got that Swagger body wash...