Posts tagged ‘gifts’

For my 30th birthday, my friend Natalie sent me a cookie bouquet from Cookies by Design.  The cookies were beautifully decorated & really yummy (cookies & icing & not overwhelmingly sweet).  After my family & I devoured them, I kept the box, sticks, and wrappings for a future project.  I made a house-warming gift for my husband’s sister & her roommate.  They LOVE cheese, so I put blocks of cheese on the cookie sticks.

These are the flowers that Rob gave me for Mother’s Day. They still look as fresh as the day he brought them home to me. Aren’t they amazing?

Well, the trick to keeping cut flowers fresh is changing the water daily. And by keeping your flowers in a tea pot for a vase it is very simple to change the water. I just tip the pot and pour out the old water and refill it in the sink. I don’t have rearrange the flowers at all.

Now Mother’s Day has lasted for more than a week. If only I could get my family to make my breakfast everyday until these flowers wilt!

Vintage is in and has been for a long time now and my guess is that it is here to stay. Whether it’s clothing, jewelry, dishes or furniture, there is something truly lovely about beautiful vintage goods. The whiff of memory and nostalgia, the authenticity and uniqueness, the refreshing quality of something old made new again through use in a different age. Sustainability is also a factor – there are so many talented artists and designers recycling vintage into gorgeous new things and rescuing heaps of fabric, metal, woods and plastics from overflowing landfills in the process.

My personal style is quite simple and minimalist but within that I have a collection of elegant vintage jewelry, china and silverware, much of it gifts from my dear grandmothers. Jewelry is a popular topic here on Clever Nesting so I thought I would share a couple of ideas about how to wear vintage brooches.

The easiest way, of course, is to just pin them on. I love the look of a sparkly brooch on a coat or jacket and they are lovely on sweaters, especially as a substitute for buttons or clasps. Lately I’ve also been wearing several of my brooches as necklaces. This is such an easy thing to do: string a chain or ribbon through the closed clasp of the brooch, swing it over your neck and voila, a unique and creative accessory that will leave you smiling all day long.

If you already have a few prized hand-me-down brooches try looping them around your neck the next time you’re thinking of it. And if there’s nothing sitting in your jewelry box yet, ask around at the next family gathering to see what the generations before you may have stuffed away in their dresser drawers or start scouting antique shops, garage sales, consignment stores and other treasure troves. I highly recommend the latter as a fun, indulgent and inexpensive way to spend a day and spark your creativity and the former is a great way to share in stories from the past.

Read more about guest blogger Erica of Nest and Sparkle.

My boss’s birthday was coming up and bless her heart, she appreciates a handmade gift. I had a gorgeous skein of purple (her favorite color) yarn in my stash. But what to make with only 220 yards? A crocheted scarf. The wonderful thing about this scarf pattern is (a) it’s free on Ravelry (just sign up for a free account to access it), (b) it’s open, lacy, and perfect for spring, and (c) it’s crochet so you know you can whip it up quickly.

After winding the yarn into a ball and finding my I hook, I got to it. Two days later (with only minimal time spent working on it) I had a scarf. The secret to making this scarf a WOW is blocking. I let it soak for about 20 minutes in my sink with some wool wash. After gently squeezing all the water out I pinned out the points on the scarf, making sure to stretch it as much as possible. That one skein of yarn ended up about 58” long and 10” wide. A quick and easy gift for a spring birthday.  Crochargosy Scarf

Read more about guest blogger Andrea Sanchez.

For a few Christmas gifts this year I’m making record bowls.  Everyone can use decorative bowls for something like office supplies, wrapped candies, candles, or spare change & keys.  Plus, I think this is a good manly gift for my brothers, who are very hard to shop for!

Supplies:  a vinyl record (one that’s not valuable!), oven, oven mitts, oven-safe bowl, an additional bowl for shaping the record after it comes out of the oven, and a cookie tray. Read more »

For my friend Megan’s birthday, I gave her these earrings I made.  The background tag is a recycled cereal box, and “happy birthday” and her name are stamped.

photo credit: Post Punk Kitchen

I knew there’s a good reason I save old tea boxes!  Here’s a cookie box idea from Post Punk Kitchen (via Readymade).  They packaged homemade cookies into a recycled tea box and even placed a few bags of tea under the cookies.

I think this is a perfect gift for an informal visit with a friend or neighbor.  It’s nice enough to be thoughtful, but it doesn’t have that “I owe you one” obligatory feeling that some gifts carry.  So today I dug through my stash of recycled boxes & containers.  Here are some favorites, and surely I’ll save more for visiting during the holidays.