Gift-making
The gift giving season for many of us is coming up, and so I am going to use this week's post to share a couple of more specific and less philosophical ideas for gift giving using what's in your hand. If you do not celebrate any holidays this December, you can still use these for other occasions, or just for fun.
Remember the old story of the ants and the grasshopper? The grasshopper played all summer while the ants worked away, storing food for the winter- planning ahead. The grasshopper made fun of the hardworking ants and said they should be more like him. But when winter came, he had no food for the winter, and perished. "What's in your hand" is a philosophy that works better for ants than grasshoppers. You needn't be a hoarder, but the prudent person plans ahead. This means buying things when they are on sale even if you are not going to use them that week- or even month. You want to be careful, because you do not purchase foolish things or things your own family would never use just because they are sale. Sometimes, too, even though it might be best in the long run to buy extras while that item is on sale, you simply haven't got enough of a cushion in your budget to take advantage of long run savings because you cannot choose that over short run survival.
Gradually, however, the more on sale buying you are able to do, the more often you use what's on hand instead of what you 'feel like' having on a given day, the greater the cushion you can build for your budget so that you can afford to purchase items on sale well in advance of their use, because you can foresee that these are practical things that can be put to good use (I guess there is a bit of philosophizing to be had on this subject after all).
Which brings us to the first little gift I have to share today. In August and September when school supplies are on sale, I stock up for the year. I do not remember the last time I paid full price for a notebook. And so at the beginning of every school year I buy up a batch of these composition notebooks for one dollar each. I also buy the miniature ones (4.25 by 3.25) for .20 each (5 for a dollar). I have a nice large teacher's desk, the old fashioned wooden kind, and the storage space beneath the legs is just right for two storage bins of school supplies.
The next thing I have in my hand is a collection of pretty pictures for crafts. I get these from junk mail, old catalogs, desk calendars, and sometimes old picture books that have fallen into a state of utter ruin. I snip out a few pictures from these sources, save them in a folder or my desk drawer, and throw the rest away. I cannot have more than one folder or desk drawer of these little scraps, so that the collection does not get out of hand.
Armed with these supplies, a bottle of glue, and a good pair of scissors, you can make a present like this:
You can cover it with clear contact paper, or make a wash of glue and water and paint over the pictures with that. When it dries, it makes a clear, hard finsih, slightly glossy. Cover both the front and the back of the notebook for a more finished, polished look. You could, if you are a scrapbooker and so have the tools, put in a brad at each outside corner of one cover and then run a loop of elastic through it to use to hold it shut.
On larger notebooks you can also drill a hold through the middle of the outside edge of the covers and put a bit of ribbon in so that the owner can tie her notebook shut.
I made another one, not pictured here, for a friend who collects giraffes. I used giraffe pictures from an old children's picture book I had on hand, and it looked very whimsical. I then used alphabet stickers, one per two page spread, and wrote a collection of quotes, both funny and serious, from A-Z in the notebook.
Using the same concept- glue, pictures from junk mail, desk calendars, etc., we have decorated jars from our kitchen and filled them with home-made bath salts, granola, (scroll down for the easy skillet granola recipe), home-made biscuit mix (again, scroll down for the recipe), cookie mix, Russian Tea , Pot Pourri, or Hot cocoa mix, any gift you can give in a jar can be spruced up by decorating that jar with a few sweet pictures from your stash, glued both front and back to seal them well.
What's in my hand? Glue, scraps cut out from junk mail and old books, and something upon which to glue them.
Updated to add: If you'd like to see pictures of the notebook with the giraffe theme, you will find them here.
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4 Responses to “Gift-making”
November 9th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
What a really cute idea!!
November 10th, 2007 at 10:58 am
This is good for anyone, but especially a great idea for teen girls to make for their friends. That was so frustrating for me as a teen when all of my friends were exchanging gifts and I had such a small amount to spend.
November 10th, 2007 at 11:26 am
I made these a couple years ago for my sisters. I have pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/a2jc4life/sets/72157603057916478/
if anyone would like to see more actual photos for inspiration.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I do not remember the last time I paid full price for a notebook.
Likewise, with Crayola crayons for us.
I haven’t found a child yet who doesn’t appreciate the gift of a fresh pack of sharp new crayons.
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