Sarah Ruthless: Serenity/Firefly Themed Gift Basket

A little late I know, but I wanted to share my experience from this past Valentine's day.

Now, I don't generally go overboard for Valentine's Day- the beau's birthday is just the month before and our anniversary is right afterward so those holidays get priority in the budget. This year, I decided on a creative, budget friendly little gift basket themed around his favorite series, Firefly.

When I hit the internet I couldn't find another example of anyone doing this, so I decided to record my process in pictures so I could share it here.

Allons-y!

First off, the tools and components:

Small wood crate- Amazon
Shredded paper- Michael's Art Supply
Swing-top glass bottle- Amazon
Scissors
Double-stick tape
Aluminum foil
Nature Valley Trail Mix Bars
Kahlua
Skyy Vodka
Fruity Oaty Bar wrappers- deviantArt
Mudder's Milk label- deviantArt

Not Pictured:

Bao
Milk

A couple things to touch on here- There are actually quite a lot of recipes on the internet for Mudder's Milk and Fruity Oaty Bars, but the Mudder's Milk recipes all contain dark beer which gives beau headaches and I'm crap at baking so the bars were out as well.

Back to it! I chose Nature Valley Trail Mix bars for my Fruity Oaty's because they have (you guessed it) fruit, and oats! Since the label was proportioned more for a flat chocolate bar than a granola-type bar, I had to smoosh the trail mix bars- luckily they were pretty soft so I was able to do this without any additional tools.

Nestle it up in some foil...

Wrap 'er nice and snug in the label, and tape...

Repeat as needed!

To mix up my beer-free version of Mudder's Milk, simply do a 1-to-1 ratio of vodka and Kalhua into your glass bottle, and top with chocolate milk, to taste (wipe the outside of your bottle clean at this point if need be). Next, cut out your Mudder's Milk label, hit that bad boy with some double-stick tape and throw it on your bottle!

Bam.

I actually wound up unable to find any bao, so I picked up the most similar pork-buns I could find at a local Chinese place. All I did was place it into my wood crate atop the straw and all was well.