What's with gift bags?

There is a new kid on the block, according to what I’ve read. Retailers are reporting that the sales of gift bags are steadily growing. People who track this sort of thing say that gift bag sales will top 400 million this year, and that doesn’t count Santa’s special year end order - heck, he probably makes his own. The growing popularity is attributed to changing lifestyle. It’s quick and easy and many people just don’t feel they have the time or skill to wrap a gift. Many retailers are geared up at this time of year to make it as easy as possible for shoppers. Free boxes for the asking and wrapping while you wait. But, dropping it in a bag is sure easy.

The gift bag boom may bring about some changes. Will it replace wrapping paper? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. The ballpoint sure did send the fountain pen to the retirement home. But they said radio was dead when TV came along. One thing is for sure, we all know that wrapping paper costs too much. Is it possible that a little competition will change this? Let’s hope so.

Statistics show that gift bags already surpass wrapping paper for some occasions. Bags for birthdays and wedding showers are the leader in our dash from store to store culture. Perhaps, Tom Cruise would have gotten a my wedding gift if I’d gone that route instead of procrastinating.

Convenience sure has it’s place, but pulling a gift out of a bag isn’t near as thrilling as unwrapping a box that’s been embellished with a personal touch. One pleasant thought though - as you go about your merry shopping way - paper products are recyclable, or at least biodegradable. Happy wrapping.

Breakfast basket idea

What an interesting idea - giving a breakfast gift basket to a friend. I’ve been thinking about it but haven’t put the idea completely together. There is, after all, some very pleasing things that could be done. Starting with coffee, there are many places known for their quality product. Coffee with well known names like Colombia, Jamaican, Viennese and Kona. Some come in miniature packages - enough for at least a couple of cups of tasty brew. And lets not forget exotic teas and gourmet cocoa drinks - all delightful ways to start the day. Certainly some special fruits would be a good addition. And if it was a hand delivered basket, I could make a stop at the German bakery and pick up some scones and croissants. And that would call for a jar of raspberry jam. A little offbeat but I like this idea.

Free holiday card

Looking for something special in the way of a holiday card? What about a do-it-yourself version? Something new - just in time for the holidays. These are 3-D pieces made from paper. All it takes is scissors and glue stick. If you want to cut them out and send them unassembled they could be a holiday card. Fits in a A7 envelope (template ready for download, if needed.) Just write a note and let it be a do-it-yourself holiday card. These were designed with children in mind - sort of a craft project - but anyone can have fun with this easy-to-do project.

Here is another from the 3-D series of gift cards. These are not really cards in the true sense but they can be mailed, unassembled, with a message. They are free standing - put them anywhere you want: On the mantle, window sill or dashboard. Kids can make them, along with snow flakes for tree decorations.

Wrapping Rescue

If you hear a little voice asking for help when you move into your gift giving mode, your not alone - it can be a stressful time, especially during the holidays. If you’re wondering how you can make the gift giving a little more fun and exciting, it’s time to think outside the box. Here’s an idea: Have you ever thought of gift giving with a theme? Take a trip to the party store and look for things that can be adapted to the theme. Drop by the dollar store for small, wacky items and be sure to look for a bargain in wrapping paper.

A theme can work off the gift itself. Music, for instance, offers easy solutions. Grab a couple of old magazines and start cutting out parts of faces. Reassemble on a blank piece of paper. Eyes looking in different directions, mouth off center, who cares? The crazier the better. To make the theme add musical notes for eyes, ears or hair. If there is more than one package just carry this through. If you are bored with faces try cats, dogs or fish. A wrapping job like this will certainly take the blahs out of gift giving. Have fun.

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Holiday Gift Baskets - Siimply Great

A gift basket is great way to say ”You are special.” Because if you know the person you are making it for you can select those perfect little treasures that delight the senses. And what better way to go about it than with the ever popular gourmet theme? The first decisions are probably whether to buy a ready-made or make your own. Of course, if you wait too long the first option will be out the window. Make it yourself and a trip to a couple of gourmet food stores will give you plenty of ideas for that holiday gift basket. There may even be baskets available there. Another approach is to add a few items to a commercial basket for a more personal touch.

That old holiday favorite - gift baskets offers a quick solution to gift giving. And because it offers an abundance of items it's likely to hit the mark. Holiday gift baskets have the power to delight the senses with their bountiful offering. Most commercial baskets offer a variety of themes to choose from. Just choose your price range and cross your fingers that it will arrive on time. The alternative is to make your own. Take a tip from the pros, start with a theme. A hand made gift basket with a theme sends a personal message as well as delightful holiday gift.

For something extra there are items like movie tickets, subway pass, coffee shop gift card and small stuffed animals. Other ways to add a little fun could be to include some Belgian chocolates, CDs, toys, and crossword puzzles.For an offbeat treat there are sock puppets and voodoo dolls for the active imagination, or a how-to juggle kit.

To be successful, not everything in a food themed holiday gift basket has to be peeled or sliced. The same goes for any other theme you choose. This could mean a bunch of artificial grapes or other items that could be used in a table arrangement. Even a few artificial flowers, this is a time to think creatively and with your thinking cap on you should be able to come up with a variety of items that will do.

Got the theme all wrapped up but still looking for something different? A sample of vanilla bean or saffron would really delight the cook.

Still looking for something special? Local craft fairs hold lots of possibilities. Jewelry, pottery and sun catchers being a few favorites. Mini pet portraits would definitely tickle someone’s fancy.

Putting it all together - the thing that creates the magic. It should be visually pleasing but have balance. Bigger, heavier items in the center, tall bottles like wine and olive oil reclining and lots of small things to fill in the spaces. Feel free to rewrap items that you think can be made more attractive. Esthetics are important for success, the finished look should be bountiful but not cluttered.

It all comes together when you give it that final wrap of clear plastic. The nice thing is it doesn’t hide the effect you have worked hard to create and conforms well to irregular shapes. It also helps hold everything in place and preserve freshness. You see all those gifts lying there in a bed of raffia - your holiday gift basket has become a cornucopia of delight. It’s a very exciting effect. For an added touch, at this final stage, you can try your hand at doing a double wrap of clear plastic and sprinkling confetti between the layers. And top it all off with a fancy bow and a few streamers of curly ribbon. Be sure to include a gift card that expresses your holiday best wishes. Make it even more heartfelt with a handmade card for your personal message.

Holiday gift baskets

A gift basket is a festive gift that will certainly delight the senses. Put on your thinking cap before you start shopping. First take a look around,the holiday season offers many possibilities fot a theme. A theme gives you something to build on, a jumping off point for collecting a variety of items to create that fun basket. There are many ways to go, keeping in mind the occasion and who it is for. Setting the mood of your gift selections could be considered a sub-theme. Here you have the opportunity to be playful, completely wacky or formal, to name a few of the possibilities. Keep in mind the visual presentation as you go along.

To get the ball rolling try to imagine the excitement you can create by gathering together a few unusual gift items that will enhance the effect. A fruit basket, for instance, doesn’t just have to be about island mangos an Fiji apples - although they are very nice. A set of hand carved wooden spoons from a craft fair or a couple of fortune cookies - if you can replace the fortunes, even better.

To be successful, not everything in a food themed basker has to be peeled or sliced. The same goes for any other theme you choose. This could mean a bunch of artificial grapes or other items that could be used in a table arrangement. Even a few artificial flowers, this is a time to think creativitly. Bath products, gourmet foods, wine and cheese and craft supplies are a few of the populr ones. You should be able to come up with a variety of items that will make your theme perfect.

Once you’ve got all your bottles, boxes and oddities in hand it’s time to do some arranging. Putting it all together - the presentation, is thing that creates the magic. It’s good to start with a bed of raffia or some similar material. Darker colors usually work best for this. To ensure success, put heavier items in the center, tall bottles like wine and olive oil reclining and lots of small things to fill in the spaces. If you would like to specially wrap a few items, feel free - it will add to the mystery and visual excitement. Use your good judgment - the finished look should be bountiful but not cluttered.

Time to wrap it up - the finishing touches will give your gift basket that professional look. Wrapping gift baskets in in clear or tinted plastic is the usual way to secure things, as you probably have noticed. The reason is simple, it doesn’t hide the effect you have worked hard to create and conforms well to irregular shapes. So add a few special touches, like a bow and gift and happing gift giving.

A couple of cards

These greeting cards use a couple of different techniques but took very little effort to make, once I was shown how. The maroon and purple one uses regular stamping with a wash overlay. Several layers of torn paper are a nice touch.

The blue and green card uses a short flap that slips through hotdog shaped hole to keep the cover closed. The dusting of color around the ellipse is a subtle effect. Both cards use an emboss technique which is created with metallic powder sprinkled on a special ink.

First gift cards with stamping

We just went to a stamping party - first ever, for one of these types of get-togethers. A group of people invited together, most meeting each other for the first time, to learn some of the possibilities of rubber stamping. Of course this technique has lived in the mundane world of commerce for ever. Familiar bold gothic words in red with messages like cancelled, past due and top secret. Their message projecting an urgent call to action.

If you’ve visited an art store you know there is a shelf of these little pink gems, but now they are mostly images with a different meaning. That is what this party was all about. Our host was a perfect pilot into this world, a fun teacher with a huge collection of samples to give us the possibilities for our own creations. After a few simple demonstrations she has us making our own greeting cards. The tools are much more refined than I had imagined, which proved a very important point: If you are organized you can be so much more productive. In no time each of us had made a couple of professional looking cards. And it was very easy, with the tools at hand for scoring, embossing and coloring.

We learned that stamping has a lot to offer. It is probably the most overlooked art technique, perhaps because it is so simple to use. As Tami showed us, it’s how you use it that makes it a versatile art tool. Try for yourself the simple technique of hand painting a stamp with water based markers. See what you think of your multicolored image. Another thing to try is stamping with the usual oil-based ink pad but then coloring in the negative areas with water colors. It looks like there are a lot of possibilities for exploration, and for those that don’t feel comfortable drawing stamping can be a very creative tool. I’m ready to try out a couple of gift wrapping ideas.

Pop-up card

If you’ve ever had the experience of walking through an old, abandoned barn or house you know that feeling, your imagination was probably working overtime. Recently I walked through a long-closed amusement park. It wasn’t abandoned, parts of it were refurbished and being used for other things. Even so, it was quit an experience. Old amusement parks, and especially road carnivals, have such wonderful graphics. The faded art for the bumper cars at this park was the inspiration for this card.

By attaching small coil springs, made from floral wire, these two bumper car figures jiggle nicely with the slightest motion. With the right inscription I’ve been able to use this for several occasions. My favorite being a wedding anniversary, which didn’t seem to need any explanation. But with a funny play on words it could probably work for other occasions. .

Public records like the National Archives have libraries of these images, from the great depression, when out of work artists and others were working for the WPA documenting Americana. If you have the patience there are treasures there to be unearthed - if you can find them. Unfortunately a computer crash lost all except a few. Have been unable to find the location again. Images are probably from the National Archives or National Park Service.

Pop-up card

In addition to our regular gift wrapping stuff, greeting cards seem like a natural way to have a little fun with scissors and paper, So while we have our tools handy, it’s off to see what we can come up with. Handmade cards are such fun projects and a treat to receive. It’s sort of like getting a little surprise gift in an envelope. In fact a friend of mine sends some of his creations in clear envelopes. There no mistaking these for junk mail. So with pop-up cards on the brain I am posting the first of a series handmade cards that do more than just sleep like a cat. If you take pleasure in fold, spindle and mutilate, join us as we go - we know not where.

This a first attempt. The hand raises up off the card about ½” The card which is held in place by two simple cuts in the hand, entitles someone to a free hug.

This a first attempt at a 3-D card. The hand raises up off the card about ½” The card which is held in place by two simple cuts in the hand, entitles someone to a free hug.

The gift wrapping season

So many postings these days about holiday gift ideas. The big season introduces itself even before the first frost, here in Virginia. But it'a all for the good. Starting early means a better chance of finding the right gift and maybe a little less stress, or from my point of view, a little more time to spend with friends and family. And more time to spend on a family tradition - gift wrapping. This is a family thing that has evolved quite naturally. So that now, when the big day arrives and all the family is gathtered, the fun of seeing these gift wrapping creations is a delight in itself. It certainly is a fun time, admiring all the wrapping creations and getting all the details of where a ribbon was found or where the special paper came from.

Arts on Foot

She paints like she is very comfortable with color and how it's best used - moving back and forth between traditional and something more modern. I especially liked the animal portraits which are a bit edgy in their treatment of space. Seeing animals portrayed in unusual settings casts a new way of treating pet portraits. This is the nice thing about art. Whaterver your tools or subject matter there are always new ways to make an idea look fresh.

Working with gift baskets

Gift baskets fall into the category of unusual shapes. Wrapping shapes, other than boxes, can pose a challenge. There are special considerations for wrapping gift baskets, especially for those professionally wrapped but what about others? What are some options for those who want to create their own or personalize a commercial basket?

Fancy ideas for fun

When wrapping gifts with a theme there are opportunities galore to experiment and work on technique. Wrapping in the circus theme suggest lots of ideas and using cut paper is very appropriate for this. Here’s a suggestion: have one large central figure, a clown, for example, cut from colored craft paper and even snips of magazines. Make it exaggerated in style and brightly colored, with big red nose, blue hair and baggy pants, all that stuff. Then add secondary elements - using the paper doll style cut several small strings of elephants marching trunk to tail. Keep your design simple for easy cutting.

Stamping and stenciling will be very nice for this. You can be real creative and combine techniques. If you were doing circus trains instead of elephants you could stamp the cars with animal shapes. If doing more than one package carry this theme over. The wonderful thing about all this is it takes very little in tools and materials and results are a gift wrapped with a personal expression that says so much.

New ideas for wrapping

We’ve added some new gift wrapping ideas that cover a variety styles - you should find something you like. In our quest to present alternatives to traditional ribbon and bow there are unusual alternatives for wrapping gifts.

There are ideas you can use to create your own designs for just about any occasion. Grab your scissors and get creative. Gift wrapping can be fun. See new pages for great ideas.

Free Polymer Clay Gift

Free Polymer Clay Gift
By chance we came across a beautiful book on polymer clay craft that we would like to share with out visitors. At first we were so impressed that we thought we would do a book review to alert viewers. But as it turns out we’ve found sponsors that will underwrite the cost so we can give this book for free.

It’s a hefty 2lb+ book loaded with hundreds of quality clay projects from name artists. Thumbing through this book will cause your creative spirit to take off like a rocket ship for the moon. Whatever your focus in the polymer clay craft world, there will be something in this book for you. It’s about shape and color. It’s about imagination. It’s about working with very versatile polymer clay.

Polymer Clay Reference Added

We’ve added pages that should be of great interest to our visitors. So many people are into craft these days that we’ve decided to include it in our list of topics on this site. The first change you will notice, if you go to Sitemap, is that we’ve begun by adding reference pages related to Polymer Clay crafts. Other topics will follow as we look for topics that would be of interest to our friends.

Each resource page has references to a specific key word. So if you are looking for information on a particular item this may be useful. Included with that you will see other suggestions that we think are noteworthy.

Paper Is More Than Wrap

As we talked about before, the art of paper cutting has a long and glorious history. At least as long as the Chinese have had paper and that’s a long time. We can learn a lot from their dedication to the craft. Using this ancient technique of cut paper today would be as fresh as any idea you could come up with for adding artistic flair to a gift wrapping. All that’s required is a sharp craft knife and a cutting board. Gift wrapping paper is not the first choice of materials. Colored paper is preferred. The weight depends on the project.

One approach is creating a 3-D effect. We could take a look at the circus, it’s loaded with images that can be applied to gift wrapping. For this idea a simple image will do - a clown face. We are all familiar with the basic shapes: White face, big red nose, blue hair and a funny little hat. By adding paper tabs under the nose and hat you can make have a 3-D effect. Shred the edge of the hair with scissors. Top it off with buttons for eyes and draw a mouth and you have it.

Paper Cutting - A Sharp Idea

Explore paper cutting if are looking for a new twist for gift wrapping. The idea of paper cutting is a tradition among Chinese, going back thousands of years. Chinese women are quite skilled at this craft. History shows that they placed the art of cut paper in a very functional role. As alternative to written language these pictures were used to express ideas and as a learning tool. Children learned from folk tales about love, kindness, treachery and ambition. Their mothers used them as a way to teach morality and history as they were growing up.

These delicate illustrations, loaded with symbolism were also used as sympathetic magic. Fierce animals, hung over doorways to repel evil spirits or in invited good spirits into the home to bestow their blessings. It was also a custom to give cutouts to family members to ensure prosperity and good fortune or to newlyweds for happiness and fertility.

Cut paper can add a nice decorative touch to a gift wrap. There are many ways to approach it. In addition to the basic snowflake cutout, colored paper can be cut into shapes like stars, flowers and animals to adorn a present. The idea is to be imaginative and playful.