One day i was at work making some token gifts to give away to clients..and i thought that now we have a Home Economics forum here. So, why don’t we learn and teach each other some interesting things. This thread is dedicated to gifts you can make. I never learnt anything artsy or crafty..so i hope this can be a learning thread for me Feel free to share ideas that are simple (which means no stitching, sewing, embroidery, crochet etc stuff). Also, another purpose of this thread could be: it will help people to do something in their spare time if they feel bored..and also some people can involve kids and can make it as a group activity for them as well.
Here’s an example for you all:
** Mini Gift Giving Box: **
*Materials Needed: *
Egg cartons
Paint
Stickers or glitter to decorate
Clear tape or masking tape
Tissues
Piece of jewelry or any small gift item
Instructions: *
First, cut out 2 egg carton pieces.
Next, tape the 2 egg carton pieces together only on one part of the back. ( so it makes a hinge.)
Then, paint the box with any color and,wait til the paint dries.
Next, put stickers or glitter on to decorate.
Then, stuff tissues inside the little round gift giving box.
Finally, put your small gift item or piece of jewelry into the box.
And… Your Done!!! (Give your gift in this small gift box made with love.)
sameen bahi.. this is very interesting.. u hav web cam rite.. i really wanna try this.. can u take some pictures and specially how u start off with and then what u end of makin..
Maybe this does not fall under home made but oh well. When I went to Egypt I brought back some sand from the pyrmids and water from the Nile, and when I got home I bought those hour glasses and took out what was in them and but the sand in them, and bought really nice small glasses with nice caps and put the water in them. I then gave them out to friends.
Home made gifts are nice if you buy a few little things all theme related and put them in a huge basket and add your little touches I do. When I bake some cookies, cakes or sweets like baklava or anything like that I buy a nice try put the sweet in the try and cover it with some nice colored plastic wrap and bounch it all up and put a beautiful bow on it. I love doing all sorts of things like that.
Qrius ...its a nice thread :)
though i'm not sure u want us to share the ideas about gifts ...or packing gift items
well, if its about gifts ....then few years back in our college days , we worked on it as a project .....actually i've done my degree in home economics .....n in last two years we r required to do a lot of these things .....our group decided to do stain glass as token gifts .....:)
u can use a small mirror or frosted glass ....n dowhatever u feel like ....like u can write a quotation on it ....or a small poem or just draw some flowers or any motif of ur choice .....for writing u will require lead ...which is available in various colours like black , silver , golden , or bronze etc. n paints for stain glass don't require any special skills ....even a child can apply them ....
in my college days i made jewellery boxes in stain glass ....wall hangings ....padestals .,,,,etc.
then u can use fabric paints or ceramic paints etc.....infact a friend of my sis gave her a mug (normal tea mug)
it was painted with embossed ceramic paint n it looked great :)
n if u r talking about gift packing ....:)
then try ribbon flowers , or u can apply normal glue above a small box in which u wanna pack gift .....u can paste tooth picks on it in different patterns ....or try painting on these tooth pics .....once my mother used pistachio shells on a box in a pattern of bunch of grapes ....or u can even try it with different legumes (dals ...moong , masoor etc.)
or u can decorate it with bronze flowers ...i'm not sure from where u can buy bronze sheet ....but we did buy it in lahore then .....u can cut bronze sheet in whichever form u like ...n for detailed look u can press it with a hair pin to give an effect of detailed work
now i'm not sure this was all u wanted us to share ....but this is what i understood from ur post above
:)
** pp007: ** i'll try to post something when i'll make one :-) Feel free to share any ideas you may have.
** Majestic: ** thanks for sharing your ideas..yes, those are relevant to the thread :-) The only thing i couldn't visualize is the first part about the sand, water and hour glass. Is it possible to see anything in photograph? please do so..coz it seems like a neat idea.
** Afia: ** very nice ideas infact..the thread is about anything from gifts to packing..to anything that you can make..keep the ideas coming.
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As for another contribution..i just remember..as a kid..i once collected pop bottle caps..and covered them up in purple and green and yellow colored cloth and glued them up as a grape bunch..and glued them to a stick..
i also made some paper mache gifts like bowls and trays etc in high school..and also some ceramic stuff..but i can't make any clay stuff coz i don't have a kiln.
Qrius ...what about batik n tie n dye ....etc. ....???
its sooo much fun
n as for other gift items ....u can make some small dry arrangements .....n u can make so many variations in dry arrangements ....n they look so great
:)
This entails sewing. Why not make a few quilt squares using old material in the house.. from old dresses, jeans...or whatever is laying around. Nice thing to use would be old cloth from favorite old clothes.
Easy to cut into diamonds and triangles with pinking sheers and hem stich em together.
You could take a diamond center and hem stich triangles all around into a star. Easy.
If you don't wish to save for a quilt..you could bind the star to a square piece of nice muslin material/sheet material and make a pillow. You could then with fine thread embroider a date, or initials. You don't have to be an expert sewer to do this. It's very simple.
well, this is not really gifts, but i often make cards for my loved ones. once i bought some photo paper, and drew intricate henna-type designs with metallic/gel pens.
i also collect and press flowers and leaves… then i take the dried flowers/leaves, brush some paint on them and press them onto photo paper or card paper.
u can make all sorts of cool designs with vegetables, depending on how u slice them! my favourite is okra, cut the head off, then take a pointy thing and remove the seeds. then lightly brush paint on it and voila, u have a stamp. make stamps all over the card in orange, greens, blues, reds, it looks simply beautiful, just like flowers!
another thing u can do is spray paint. cut out a design in hard paper, for example, paisley. then u place the cut out on your card paper. then u take a toothbrush, brush some paint on it, then using ur thumb, spray paint the card paper. when u take off the cut out, u have an outline of ur design. i think this works best on black card paper with spray painting done in bright colours.
i really like Majestic’s idea about the scrap book though, it’s really a great gift idea!
a friend of mine showed me a collage that her friend had given her when she moved away. that person had made the collage by cutting up some pictures and pasting them. she had a variety of stuff there, pictures and all the little things that were special memories. i thought that was a really sweet thing to do, a gift that was priceless. that gave me the idea for a scrap book. whenever my fiance and i go anywhere, i collect the memories, be it movie stubs, or pictures, i collect memories of our first-times anywhere, and put them in my scrap book. sometimes we sit together and look and it, and i can see that he really enjoys reliving those moments, and i can imagine how much pleasure it will bring us both years from now.
Feel free to share ideas that are simple (which means no stitching, sewing, embroidery, crochet etc stuff). Also, another purpose of this thread could be: it will help people to do something in their spare time if they feel bored..and also some people can involve kids and can make it as a group activity for them as well.
