I Wanna Make Gifts

the intro

I’d like to open with an ode to gift giving:

It makes your insides all warm And puts a smile on your face. what else do you get? The most heartfelt embrace.

Presents are really concrete offerings of our thoughts, dreams, and well-wishing to our friends and our family. They mean that much more when we make them with our own two little hands. It sounds a little sappy, but ain’t it the truth?

Gift giving should never be about going out and buying the most expensive present you can find. Or the the flashiest. Or the hippest, most cutting-edge thingamabob. It should be a process that starts with thinking about the recipients, or the givees, as I like to call them. First, concentrate on their likes and interest and personalities and hobbies. You should think about their favorite colors or their favorite music.

All these things can and should inform all your gift giving. And then, after much contemplation, you can handcraft them something that is perfect and plenty personal.

Making your gifts by hand is a fantabulous way to express your own creativity. It’s an excuse to get down and dirty with the craft glue and felt and sequins. It’s another chance to have fun.

Gift giving is, of course, great for holidays, but also just because. The best gifts are often the unexpected gifts, right? No need to wait around for annual birthdays and Hallmark-deemed days of celebration. Come up with any ol’ excuse to give a gift. Lincoln’s Birthday? Sure! National Ice Cream Day? Why not! I Love My Friends in Canada Day? Absopositively!

And here is the extra added bonus to crafting for others: Everyone loves gifts. And everyone is grateful and will give you lots and lots of thanks and love and hugs and kisses, and hey, that’s not good, or better, than the actual crafting itself. And if that’s not inspiring, I’m not sure what is.

what you need to make the projects in this book:

what you don’t need to make the projects in this book:

a huge wad wad o’ cash

CHAPTER ONE

classically cool gifts

These gifts are ideal basics, perfect prezzies for most anyone on your list—thoughtful, useful, and homemade.

Project #1: coolio checkbook cover

Did you know you can buy plain ol’ clear plastic checkbook covers? Do you care? Well, you, should. Because in a freakishly small amount of time, you can transform one into the kind of gift that gets hug and kisses all around. Ideal for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and any other close older relatives.

Clear plastic checkbook cover (try stationery or office supply stores)

Paper

The How-To

Open the checkbook cover completely and lay the whole thing flat on a table, then measure the dimensions. Cut a piece of paper to those measurements.

If you’re a talented artiste, now is your chance to use your skills to make a boring checkbook cover shine! Draw away, covering the cut piece of paper with your art. If you can’t, sketch, make a collage from a few family pictures on the paper and then make a color copy of it and trim the edges. Slide it inside the checkbook cover and, um, you’re done. No really, you’re done. Pat yourself on the back, dearie.

•  •  •  •

the laminator

The next Schwarzenegger blockbuster?

Not!

Doesn’t it sound like its some sort of transforming robot? And it sort of is! Basically, a laminator is a machine that seals a piece of ordinary paper in plastic, rendering it waterproof! And sturdy! And strong! And the best part? You don’t need to buy a laminator, which can be way expensive. Most copy shops have them for you to use, for a small fee. Many of the projects in this book beg for you to use a laminating machine, including the next couple.

Project #2: Puckishly Perfect Place Mats

This craft—and the next one, too—utilizes one of my favorite crafty tools: the laminating machine (see page 3). It’s difficult to find self-laminating sheets large enough to encase a place mat, so you’ll need to make sure your local copy shop has a laminator before proceeding.

A sheet of 10 × 13 piece of paper for every place mat you want to make

Artwork to decorate the place mats (could be photos, drawings, scraps, magazine clippings, whatever)

Glue stick

The How-To

Decorate your pieces of paper. You could even decorate both sides, since they will both show. Get creative. You could glue your favorite photos to the paper. Your best drawings. Mementos from a recent family trip. Clips of the cutest guys in movies today. Whatever. Then put the decorated sheets of paper in a paper bag to protect them and take them down to your local copy shop and ask to have them laminated. The people who work at the copy shop may even let you do it yourself! You feed the piece of paper into one side of the machine, and out it slowly rolls on the other side, encased in plastic. You’ll want to repeat this with the next piece of paper, and the next, until you’re done.

That’s it! You now have cleanable, waterproof place