Unique and Meaningful Gifts you can Make!

Gifts from the Garden 

For all of the Flower Children out there!

• PRINCESS DAISY CHAINS FOR YOUR HAIR: Choose a flower with a fairly thick stem. You can use daisies for a traditional look, or Black Eyed Susans, Poppies, Ecinecha, etc...Whatever suits your fancy. Pierce a hole in the stem near the base (but not too close to the end) of the stem. Take the next daisy stem and thread it through the hole. Repeat until your chain is as long as you need it to be! Make sure they are long enough, and flexible enough to work for this purpose. If you're crafty enough the bouquet will last and can be worn as a crown of flowers by the birthday girl, bride, or at a costume party! So cute!
• MINI BOQUETS: Choose the flowers that you love, be it wildflowers, or cultivated lovlies from your garden. Cut them stems fairly short; maybe 4" long. Bundle the flowers together tightly, and make sure not to skimp on quantity. A mini boquet should hold at least 15 stems, and don't forget the filler (greenery), no boquet is compelte without it. Use some natural twine, straw, or even another longer flower stem to tie the boquet together. Instant beauty! Your girlfriend or mother will love it! Make 10 or more and give to your friends at a BBQ or Wedding Shower. Decorate your table with them, or hang them upside down from your tent. No matter where these go, they are compact, portable, and undeniably sweet.
• BOWL OF DAFFODILS: In the spring when my daffodils are coming up, or my tulips, there are inevitably at least 6 or 10 stems that don't grow fully. These stunted stems are perfect for a mini boquet: Bowl of daffodils. I cut the stems as long as possible and arrange them in a circular pattern in an appropriately sized (handmade) ceramic bowl. I float the flowers, and usually end up cutting most of the stems off. I usually put at least 6 or 7 daffodils in a small bowl along with some filler flowers. A nice way to salvage the smaller stems in your garden.
• Start some of your friends (or your) favorite flowers from seed. When large enough (when the little guys have at least 4 leaves), transport them to a terra cotta pot that you've painted with outdoor paint (outside of pot only) to suit your friend. Include a hand painted sign on a popsicle stick or small piece of wood with a message to your friend. Happy Birthday Begonias, Daniels Dasies, Get Well Soon Mum! etc. Cheesy, but brilliant, bright, and beautiful!

Food! 

Everyone loves to get Treats!

• Handmade Kisses: Peanut butter cookies with Hersheys Kisses in the center mean LOVE! These yummie treats are quick, easy, and fairly inexpensive gifts. Give them on a plate, in a decorative tin, box, or straight out of the oven, warm and tasty! Mmmmmm.
• Fortune Cookies: Yes you can make your own! The recipe is simple, but it does take some practice getting the shape just right. You make your own messages...so they can be naughty or nice, flirty or fun, lovely or lustful. You make the call! So unique, no one will believe you made them yourself!
• Breakfast in Bed: This is for a close friend or family member. Make their favorite food, complete with coffee, juice, water, or Tea. Don't forget to add flowers to the table, tray, or plate. You can add a birthday candle to pancakes, Chamomile flowers to the Tea, Violets on top of Oatmeal, Just make sure the flowers are edible, and not treated with pesticides (note: fertilizer is okay, as long as the flowers weren't treated in the last few days). So sweet!
• Dinner & a Movie: This is for friends and family far away. Send them one of two options: 1. A gift certificate for their favorite restaurant, a DVD (or VHS), and a photo of you. Instand Dinner and a Movie!
  2. Dehydrated Hikers Food (Ie Mountain House, etc), with a DVD, VHS, or gift certificate to the nearest Blockbuster Movie Rental. You can substitute Movie tickets too! Another Instant, Dinner & a Movie. You get creativity points for the more original you make this! Send a 3 Course Meal of dehydrated food...Include A Main Course, Side Dish, and Desert...Or...Blow up a photo of yourself to life size (just your face). Cut out your eyes and attache a string or rubber band (large). As one of your friends, friends to wear the mask of you to dinner and a movie! Even if they don't do it, they'll get a kick out of it. If your friends are any fun, they'll at least try the mask on, and you'll get some pretty funny birthday photos out of the deal.
• Green Eggs & Ham. Green Scrambled Eggs are easy as can be. Add several drops of green food coloring to your eggs as you are whisking them before cooking. Serve with Ham. Viola! Green Eggs & Ham. Perfect for the kids in your life! Even better give them the book by Dr. Seuss, or if you already own it, spend some time reading the book (or watch the movie).
• Themed dinner. Coffee, Bannanas, Chocolate, Strawberries, etc. Choose your friends favorite food. Make a salad, 3 course meal, and desert with that food. Make sure to include at least 1 drink. Check out the internet for recipes made with their favorite foods. Fruits are easy..veggies get more complex. Coffee & Chocolate are downright fun! Check out AllRecipies.com for a starting point.
  
  examples: Strawberries: Salad with Spinach, Radiccio, Jicama, Raisins, Madarin Oranges, and Strawberries on Top! Strawberry glazed lamb shank, with baked potato (strawberry yogurt as a topping), and a Strawberry Tart to finish. Strawberry Daquaries (virgin if it's for the kiddies), or a Strawberry Shake! Yum!
  Don't forget...Kabobs! You can make Kabobs with any fruits and veggies! Yes Fruit on the grill is great!...Brings out the sweetness...just don't over cook.

Handmade Cards 

Yep, even the kids can make these

1. When Pigs Fly Card - Find a cute picture of a pig either online or in a magazine. Print and cut, or cut out of the magazine. Make sure your picture will fit the dimensions of the inside of your card. Create a valentine, or lovey-dovey card for your special someone, or a fun and funky way to say "no way" to a stalker. Who knows! Write something cute or fun on the front of the card...like: I'll go out with you... (when pigs fly) OR My love for you will end... (when pigs fly) Get creative. Put the photo of the pig inside. Make wings out of feathers, cut outs, glitter glue, or scrapbooking materials. Get really creative and put your photo (or theirs) over the pigs face! Instant entertainment, for sure! Don't call me if you get slapped for this one...
2. Long distance birthday games: On the front of the card write something along the lines of "Happy Birthday to my favorite..." OR Happy Birthday to the best looking...." Inside: A photo or cut out or drawing of a donkey. On the front put at least 3 cut out tails (pig tail, donkey tail, little kids pony tail etc). Attach with removable glue dots or double sided tape. Pin the tail on the donkey. Cute and Cheesy.
3. Photo Card: A classic. Cut out cute photos of your friend along with scenes for the particular occasion you are creating this card. ie: Your friend in the snow with a christmas tree. Decorate the tree with glitter glue and pieces of cotton ball strung out for snow. Make it classic or make it tacky. Whatever your taste. Make the picture to scale for a conservative look, or wacky and off bead for the more eclictic. Write whatever you want.
4. Mad Libs Card: Write a cute birthday or holiday story. It can be about your friend, or about the occasion. Make sure to write this on a scrap sheet of paper first. Remove several nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc from the story. When you copy it to the card, leave a blank and write "noun", "verb", "adjective", etc under the blank or line. These are great fun, especially if you can make it very personal even before the blanks.
   
   My example:
   
   The day before Valentines day, my --adejective--- boyfriend Ken --verb ending in ly--- drove his ---type of transportation--- to the ---noun--- store. When he was there, Ken bought ---a number--- dozen ---color--- roses for ---person---. On the way home, He realized that he should --verb-- towards the ---adjective--- ----noun--- as fast as he could. Ken got scared, and ---past tense verb--- so loudly that I could hear him all the way from ---place---! I was so ---a feeling--- that I almost ---a bodily function---. Can you believe that? Ken made my Valentines so special that I just had to tell my ---a religious title--- how ---verb--- my boyfriend really is. Who knew my Valentines would be so ----verb---!

A Photo Album 

1. Big Head - Use your own photos to mix and match heads and bodies. Use muscle mags, beauty magazines, cultural mags, doll magazines, politicians, and celbritites! Make sure the heads are mis-matched for the body size, either way too big, or way too small.
   
   Pick up some cool accent stickers like sun glasses, high heeled shoes, put a parrot on someones shoulder, draw on moles and mustaches etc. Have fun with this one! You can choose a theme of simply scrap someones life for their birthday.
2. Book Scrapbook - Choose your (or your friends) favorite book, or something inspirational but short enough so that you can fill the pages. I would recommend something by Dr. Seuss, SARK, Or Shell Silversteins short stories like "The Giving Tree." Again, scrap your friends likeness onto the bodies in the book. Make sure your friend also becomes the "monsters, fairies, man in the moon, butterflies, etc." That's what makes it fun!
3. Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Party Mini-Scrap - Get as many dominoes as you have guests attending. Use a "C" clamp to hold the domino to a table, making sure you position it so that you don't drill right into the table. Using a dremel tool or power drill, make a hole through the domino where you would like to put your bail or put your chain right through. Make sure the hole is an appropriate size for your plans. Wooden Dominoes are easier to drill, but the plastic/resin ones are much prettier (and might last longer). Photo copy tiny photos of the bride-to-be's face onto plain white paper. Find and print tiny brides in white gowns, sexy lingere, prim and proper attire, Godzilla (bridezilla), Halloween Lady (Bride of Frankenstein) etc. Decopage' (paint varnish on) the domino and decorate each domino as a different "bride" charachter. Attach a jump ring/"o" ring to put your chain or cord through. Instant party picker upper! Fun & Inexpensive. Remember safety with electric and/or power tools.

War of the WORDS 

1. Personal Dictionary - Include real words that are obscure, or used so often by your friend as to get annoying (eg "cool"). Include "word of the day", and personallize the definitios to fit your friends life. Useful and fun! Great for displaying at the office!
2. They story of how you met - Write it out, make it comical, romantic, sweet, and corny. Embellish, use details. The best writing advice I ever learned, I got from my boss: Write like you're mother is blind. Describe everything just as you would to someone who has never seen anything in their life. Express feelings and make connections.
   
   Draw funny cartoons, or stick people to go along with "your story."
3. Dream Big - Basicially the same as the above story, EXCEPT that this one has not happened yet. Latch on to your friends biggest, boldest, and most difficult to attain goal. Write a short story about how s/he attains the goal. Make sure to make it fun, and definatley unique. You know...One day when Sue was quickly walking home with the wind blowing through her hair, she noticed a small piece of paper whisping across the street. Being an avid recycler, Sue dashed after the scrap of sky blue paper. The paper landed near her feet, and then "whoooosh" the wind took it away again towards the Tops Grocery Store parking lot. Now Sue would not normally chase a scrap of paper all the way over to this parking lot, it's only a small scrap anyway, but something lured her towards it. Sue knew that she should turn around and walk directly home because the Cable guy was supposed to me her there, gosh, 10 minutes ago, but again the paper lured her. Sue noticed the paper stuck upon the wind of a vintage cadillac of the same color as the paper. She lunged for it, and yes, you guessed it, the paper blew off into the great blue yonder once more. Sue jumped up, said "to hell with this trash, I'm going home." The paper skittered down through the air like an oak leaf which has turned red in the late autumn, right into Sue's hand. Sue looked at the scrap of blue paper and gasped! On the paper was a short and simple note that said "Will you marry me? - The Cable Guy"
   
   ha!