Handmade Gift Giveaway

This is an idea that is doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment and I thought I'd make the same offer here.


I promise to send something I make myself to the first 5 people who leave a comment on this post. In turn, you promise to make the same offer on your blog. The rules are that you need to make the items personally and send them to your 5 folks within 2011.


I'm likely to send you one of the following: pot pourri bag; miniature book of haiku or a framed poetry collage.

Coming Soon! Green Gift Monday

Green Gift Monday coincides with Cyber Monday, November 29, the official start of the online holiday shopping season. Green Gift Monday aims to encourage people to give gifts that make a difference, like energy-efficient products, experiences rather than physical gifts or buying a virtual gift through a charity.

I think this is a great idea. I often buy people gifts from charity online gift stores. My favourite is the RSPB Good Natured Gifts. Gifts bought from here help to protect birds and other wildlife in the UK and overseas. In the USA, charity shops include the Nature Conservancy Gifts from Nature Shop.

I have found though that not everyone appreciates the virtual gift. I have one (former) friend who hasn't written to me since I sent a virtual charity gift (a donation for a home for dormice it was). I even wrote to ask if she had received the gift and no reply (and no she hasn't moved house!). So it may be useful to check whether the recipient likes the idea of a charity gift or if they'd rather have something for themselves. If it's the latter then you still have a wide range of ethical gift choices, including fair trade or locally made crafts, jewellery or clothes, organic and fair trade food hampers.

You can also make gifts greener by wrapping gifts in recycled papers, or making gifts or cards from recycled materials.

You can find links to most of my posts about green gift ideas here.

Red text in this post links to external websites, where you can find out more.

Gift Box

It's the time of year to start thinking about Christmas gifts. Possibly slightly early to think about wrapping them but a bit of forward thinking may help plan how to reuse materials to wrap gifts! Chocolates and toiletries often come in boxes that can easily be reused as gift boxes. Here, I pasted some gift wrap over the brand name on the box and filled the box with shredded gift wrap that was too torn to reuse.

You can see more of my festive gift wrap ideas by following these links:

Silvery re-used giftwrapping

Green and white reused giftwrap

Fabric gift bags

Silvery recycled Gift Wrap

Two examples of silvery reused gift wraps. These are gifts wrapped in previous years. This year I've so far got no further than buying a couple of gifts. No wrapping until December, I'm posting these now to share ideas!

The first one is a re-used piece of silver gift wrap with a tag made by drawing a silver star onto a piece of reused black card. The second uses two different reused wrapping papers, a contrasting ribbon to cover the join and a gift tag made using wrapping paper glued onto recycled card.

Re-Used Gift Wrapping

For those who celebrate Christmas, its time to start Christmas shopping! So over the next month I will be posting ideas for Christmas cards and gift wrap that not only use recycled materials, but also look great! My family has always reused Christmas wrapping paper when giving gifts within the close family. However people outside the close family, unless they're keen recyclists themselves, may be less than impressed by obviously reused paper. So how about some more imaginative ways to reuse paper in eye-catching ways? For this first one, I had reused green and white tissue paper, covered the join with green ribbon and then added a gift tag (recycled from a greetings card!) in matching colours.

Black Satin Gift Bag

Another craft project from the archives. I made this gift bag from scraps of black satin left over when I had altered a skirt. It's lined with the old lining of another old skirt and I decorated it with beads from the second skirt. I can't remember where the ribbon came from! The design could be altered, by using a strong piece of black cord instead of the ribbon, to make a neck purse.

Lavender Bags

I made this lavender bag a while ago and am reposting it because I think it deserves a second chance. I used some scraps of Malawian fabric to make lavender bags as gifts.

Its simple to make - just hem a piece of fabric, sew together two seams and fill with lavender, finishing it off with a piece of ribbon. The ribbon here is reused, but I'm not sure where it came from.

And for those of you who are wondering about my ladybird mobile, I'm working on it, it's just taking a while to source all the necessary materials!

Jewellery Display Board

I made this yesterday from some styrofoam packaging from a Christmas present, wrapped in leftover fabric from a dress I had had made for me in Malawi. It's a nice wee board to hang jewellery on, but could also be used as a notice board above a desk.

Balloons, Bunnies and Rainbows

Rabbit's Guy suggested that my recent haiku about the balloon and the rainbow was really about Hugo, Yowlyy's beautiful bunny who recently died. So here is my picture of Hugo ballooning off to the Rainbow Bridge, where Anya and an unknown black bunny are waiting for him.

It's good to see that Miss Eve, Hugo's rabbit companion is bonding with a new companion, Bing.

The picture above is drawn on reused card and the balloon is made from reused foil from a box of tea.

Gift Bags

I made these gift bags from scrap material. The gold fabric was left over from a top that I bought second hand that wasn't in perfect condition but the fabric was so beautiful I bought it anyway. I shortened the top by cutting off the damaged areas and found myself with enough cloth to make two of these gift bags. I decorated this one with beads from an old skirt and a ribbon from a box of chocolates! The other bag is made from material left over from a dress I had made in Malawi. The ribbon came from an old gift. I left this one without beads. These bags are an ideal alternative to wrapping paper. The recipient will hopefully reuse the bag, either a gift bag for someone else, or for personal storage.

Crafty Green Christmas 2 - Gifts

Really this should have been Crafty Green Christmas 1 if I had been planning properly! Ethical options for Christmas presents include:

virtual gifts such as offered through Oxfam Unwrapped
organic food hampers
fair-trade items
items made by locally based craftspeople
second hand items (best check whether people mind their gifts being second hand!)
hand made goods - especially when the gifts are made from reclaimed materials. Here are some hand made gifts I have posted on this blog:

Notebooks
Notelets and wallet
Mirrors - bought second hand and frames painted
pot pourri bags

Crafty Green Christmas 1 - Wrapping Gifts

I like to wrap gifts in reclaimed materials, but that doesn't need to mean tatty looking scraps of paper. In this example I covered some thinness on the first layer of paper with a piece of a contrasting paper. The two gifts are tied together with reused raffia and the gift tag is made from reclaimed card with a photo from a wildlife magazine. I posted other ideas for gift wrap last year, you can see them here and here.

Now included in this week's Carnival of the Green.

Notebooks

This notebook is made from good quality scrap card from the office, scap paper from the office, a photo from a magazine and a belt from a skirt! I've made a couple of other notebooks from similar materials, sometimes substituting old shoelaces or reused parcel ribbon for the belt. Once the notebook is used up, it can be refilled with scrap paper cut to the right size.

Pot Pourri Bags

These two bags contain purple and gold pot pourri I bought in a second hand shop (though judging on the potency of the perfume, it was very nearly new!). The purple bag originally held a mirror and I added a fancy button from my button box as the original button had fallen off. The golden bag is made from fabric from a top I altered a while back (I've used this fabric for other things posted earlier in this blog). The gold bag is fastened with a piece of gold ribbon that came from gift wrap I think and the two are slightly precariously held together with a thin gold string.

Spring Gift Wrap

This is a nice giftwrap for Mothers Day or a spring birthday. The paper is from two paper bags, the ribbon is reused and the gift tag is from an old greetings card. I love how the flower on the card echoes those on the paper!