Posted 03 August 2008 - 08:50 AM
Peg,
Your gift basket idea is really a good one! I did that one year...came across a cool book called The Perfect Basket by Diane Phillips at our library. It has all kinds of ideas for themes...I did a Pizza basket for my SIL--had a pizza stone, a dough mix, a potholder, seasoning packet and jar of sauce and coupons off for cheese. She loved it.
Other ideas I remember from that book were a soup basket which ocntained a nice ladle, home made soup mixes, napkins, and a soup toureen. You don't even have to be that elaborate, soup mixes and a ladle would be enough for a small gift. Also a gardener's helper basket with gloves, hand tools, seed packets and spray bottle along with a nice potted plant.
This book had ways to make a basic basket, a more than basic, and the works....depending on your budget so if you can find it, this would be a great resource for ideas.
Themes I remember were movies, bird watching,wine and cheese, romance,tea for two, cookie lovers basket, bath basket, martini basket (which was really done in an ice bucket) pet basket, back to school, beach, apples, teacher basket, and toy basket for kids. I don't know...I think there were hundreds of ideas there.
Another idea that I had was to get that transfer paper you can print computer images with and use it to make some decorated sweat shirts. My inlaws like to wear theme holiday sweat shirts and although we don't go out to California every year, we usually send them something so they know we are thinking of them...so I thought this year I might make quickie sweat shirts. I was going to cross stitch them all but decided that was too much to do in time and the transfer image will be good if I embellish parts of the design with embroidery and buttons and such instead of trying to hand work all the designs entirely. I would only be doing three shirts but still...
Also, at JoAnn's fabric clearance yesterday I found $20 soap and spa kits on sale for $4.50...ALso the huge blocks of melt-it soaps that usually sell for $25 were on sale for $5. I got couple of the kits and a couple of blocks of goat's milk soap, along with scent and colorants which were on sale for 5o cents each. These are bargains because the kits have the soap molds, ribbons and papers and labels to make finished gifts. I spent about $22 all told and my daughter will enjoy doing these. She wants to give her friends rose scented soap and a pair of earrings. We found rose-shaped glass beads and earring findings for half price. She loves to give gifts to her friends at school but we make these small gifts. So either a soap bar or small sachet bag of bath salts along with coordinating theme earrings will be great for teen girl gifts. For the boys, she bakes cookies and packages them in snack bags with a bow. For one special boy who lives far up in the north country, she is attempting to knit a hat! (this must be a serious crush--she's not exactly a knitting fanatic, LOL)We found a few weeks ago one of those large round knitting rings on clearance for $2 and it makes hats, so that is what made her think of this--it seems to be really easy this way.
Right now is when cool stuff is on clearance...after fourth of July and before Labor day is good for rifling through mark downs at craft stores for supplies to make gifts.
I bought them from LL Bean and had them monogrammed, too. It was expensive, but they are worth it.
. I have a list started. Even the elderly ladies on my list will love these. Something like a tea cup and saucer with assorted teas and a silver spoon.
