| Christmas is just around the corner and you are flat | | | | arrange the flowers on a piece of white blotting paper. |
| broke. There are so many gifts to give. People you | | | | Put another piece of blotting paper over the flowers |
| really want to pamper, but you don't have the money | | | | and put heavy books over the blotting paper to press |
| to buy decent gifts for everyone. So what do you do? | | | | the flowers for a few weeks. Once dried and |
| Well, you can make your own gifts. | | | | flattened, these flowers can be glued onto book |
| 1. The Pet Rock | | | | marks, photo frames and anything you might want to |
| Remember the pet rock craze? You can make little | | | | give as a decorative gift. |
| pets out or rocks easily. | | | | 4. Handmade jewelry |
| Just take a large, smooth pebble. Stick on a pair of | | | | You can make jewelry for the women in your family |
| eyes. Glue some felt below. Write a message on the | | | | using wooden beads or even paper clips. Bracelets |
| felt and you have a personalized Christmas gift. | | | | and necklaces are the easiest to make as all you |
| 2. Cookies | | | | have to do is to string the beads up and tie the loose |
| Are you good at baking? | | | | ends together. Use a strong elastic cord for the beads |
| Well go bake several batches of cookies using your | | | | so the bracelet is stretchable and can be put on or |
| best cookie recipes. Do a variety of cookies. Then | | | | taken off easily. As for paper clips, with a pair of |
| decorate them. Some with M&Ms some with icing | | | | tweezers and some cheap plastic beads, you can |
| sugar, some with nuts, others with raisins. | | | | make attractive paper clip earrings. |
| Put them into little plastic bags. A few of each type of | | | | 5. Are you good at crafts like crochet? |
| cookie in each bag. Tie the bag with a pretty ribbon. | | | | You can make an adorable bookworm bookmark. |
| Make small, pretty cards and write a personal | | | | Start off with the long string part of the bookmark. |
| message on each of them. Stick the cards to the | | | | Just to simple chain stich using thick wool thread until |
| outside of that bag of cookies. Each bag of cookies | | | | you have a 15 inch long crochet chain. Then do 3 |
| makes a delightful gift for Christmas. | | | | treble crochet stitches into each chain stitch for the |
| 3. Flower gifts | | | | last 30 chains. It would curl up into a cute curly |
| Do you have a garden? Do you live near a place | | | | bookworm. Stick on 2 eyes on the head and make a |
| where wild flowers grow abundantly? | | | | tassle at the other end of the chain. Once you get the |
| If you can pick some flowers, you can make pressed | | | | hang of it, you could make these bookmarks in colorful |
| flower bookmarks. I used to do those as a kid. You | | | | wool to give away as Christmas gifts. |