How to make Gift Card Envelopes and Holders

Are you like me and gift cards are part of your christmas? Well, why not make your gift cards special and have a hint of homemade gifts- make your own gift card envelopes and holders. One way I do this is take apart a small envelope, carefully - dissect it at the glued seams, and when it is apart you have a template! Just trace this onto some old paper (I use pages from those damn Christmas catalogs that are sent to me. Or you could get fancy and use these templates to make really nice holders

Gift Card envelope template

Tool box gift card holder

Artists Trading card/Credit card size Gift Card Envelope Template

Different Envelope Templates

Cool thing is you can make a gift card very personal- and have some hand made in it as well. Or you can make a cd envelope and give cd's with a personal selection of music on it. Or photgraphs on CD.

Make a Soap Stand

I saw a soap stand on Ikea Hacker- made from a heavy candle stick and a pie plate- Not wanting to waste what could be a perfectly good Pie Tin (In hopes of pie for later) I started scavenging the thrift store up the street- Here is what I came up with: I found a great small round metal platter and a brass candle stick. I simply super glued the candle stick to the metal platter and spray painted in my mom's bathroom colors! (Or what I perceive them to be). Next step is to find some handmade soaps for the tray. This could be a perfect gift for aunt or a friend or someone who likes baths with fancy soaps I guess.

Give a personalized clock for Christmas

Very easy to do. Take a clock (the one I used is "TAJMA" clock from IKEA) and basically you use the clock as a frame! Remove the clear plastic cover by releasing the tabs on the back of the clock, carefully remove the hands, take off the clock face. Then I printed this logo on some glossy photo paper, used the old face as a template, trace the circle size on your picture, cut carefully, punched a small hole in the center, put my pic in and put the hands back on and put the cover back on. This clock is for the coffee shop I frequent every morning. A cool Christmas gift or any time gift... my car club even had me make some up for Car Show awards one year! The winners got a picture of their car on the clock! If you are like me you have some of these plastic bodied clocks lying around- so here is a re-use/recycle for you. too!

How to make a Bell Cloche out of a plastic Juice Bottle

I was bragging on Beth's Fake Plastic Fish Blog that I can reuse an entire juice bottle and not have any of it go in the waste stream. Well I cannot- I forgot the label is also plastic. But I can reuse a good 90% of it.

How to make the mini wreaths!

Make Your own gifts-Hot Chocolate Cones

I watch Ms. Oprah every now and then- My mom usually has it on. I saw how to make these hot chocolate cones- a perfect gift for children, co-workers or keep on hand as an emergency gift for unexpected guests who pop in- Easy to make, the hard part is finding the piping bags (I went to Michael's and found them, I would think JoAnn Crafts would have them as well or any gourmet shop)Anyway here are the instructions for making Hot Chocolate Cones And when done you can put them in an inexpensive mug for next to nothing if you want, and fill the mug with hersheys kisses!