Lil Gifts
 

Hey All!
Sometime in the fall I will become a Big Sis for the first time. Right now I wanted to work on some crafty things while I had time. (Like a Pooh with a shirt that has Pi Phi sewn on it.) Does anyone have some good ideas? What have you gotten or received in the past?

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"We're not good because we're old. We're old because we're good!"

Since I was Big/Lil Coordinator (Sister-Mother) for my chapter I can help with this http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gifFor initiation we give our little sisters silver lavalieres. They were only $8 from UniquelyGreek.com. You can make her a scrapbook, make her a candy basket/jar. I know some chapter that buy t-shirts and then put letters on them to give to their lils. I made mine a poster and put it on her door as a suprise that said Big Sis and Alpha Gam love (her name), and then made a pouch on it and filled it with her fave candy (Sour Gummi Worms) with pictures of her and her pledge class. You Could make her a friendship/sisterhood bracelet with your sorority colors. You can also buy her stuff and Uniquely Greek has really great inexpensive stuff.

We always went to the dollar store and bought things like candy jars and rubbermaid, and then off to the craft store to buy paint, paint pens, little flowers and all kinds of more boxes and stuff. Then, all of the bigs would sit around and decorate all this stuff. It was a fun time, and it really was pretty inexpensive. My little loved all the things we made, because they took time and effort http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif I could've bought her all D Phi E stuff every week, but this was more fun. Besides, I spoiled the sh*t out of her, so she got all the D Phi E stuff too!!

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Delta Phi Epsilon, Celebrating 84 years of Dedication, Pride and Excellence!

Hi, The cutest idea i've seen is a two piece gift, one being a paddle with your sororities letters and your mascot and flower and a lapdesk with the same thing, plus your lil' sister's name on it...
if not maybe a little wooden box that you can paint their name on and your houses letters and they can place their pledge pin int there... scrapbooks are nice.. or a little journal with a few quotes that you personally put in yourself.. Hope this helps!

One of the "weird" things we do...We bought baby bibs and pacifiers and decorated them w/ fabric paint, putting our letters and the person's name on them. http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif Then we ask our lils to put them on (usually in one of our parties) and we take a picture of them w/ their bigs...and later when the pic comes out we put it in a decorated picture frame and give it to them as a present, along with the usual stuff like candy, scrap books,keychains, etc...

We also do the candy/cookie jar thing...Basically it's up to the Big herself to be as creative as she can be!

A cute idea is to get a plain picture frame and glue wooden letters on it with your names and your sorority letters. You can paint the letters different colors too if you want. A black frame with silver letters looks awsome.

Another thing along the same lines that you can do is go to a craft store or goodwill and they have lots of cute coathangers, wall decorations, stools, etc, that you can paint and put letters on. That's cool cause it's creative, personal and not too expensive.

I also sewed my little a tiny pillow for her pin. This was nice, because it was a lot cuter than the tacky ones they have at our bookstore, and a lot less expensive.

You could also make her a friendship bracelet like everyone used to make out of thread, and tell her to wear it whenever she has a test or something for good luck.

It's not really that hard to cut out your own letters from any material and sew them on a pillowcase by hand. I am not that great at sewing, but I was able to do it, and it came out really good.

Good luck! I wish I was taking a little this semester!!

I made my little a ceramic pin box. I just went to the local ceramic shop, and the rest is history. I know that a pin box is something that I would have wanted and I thought of my little, especially since they just got their badges from Nationals! I also saw ceramic picture frames, and I saw a lot of things that could double as sorority mascots.

I was in a service club in high school (very similar to sororities), and we used to exchange gifts among big-littles. Sweatshirts were popular to make, because they could be passed down among "families". The scrapbook idea and picture frames sound really good. If you know how to sew, you could make a doll in the sorority colors.

One of our chapter traditions was to make a turtle tree - turtles were our local mascot at the time. We had one big turtle that said "ASA Family" and then smaller ones with everyone in your family on them. As your family grew you added more turtles.

We make Pi Phi pillows. It's really cute. Trust me, I never have and probably never will learn how to sew. So instead I went and bought a big oversized Ralph Lauren pillow and decorated it with wine and blue glitter and markers. It was no Martha Stewart creation. Everyone makes a pillow for their big sis in my chapter, but you could make one for your Lil. We present them at chapter meeting and it awesome to see how different and creative each pillow is! Actually quite comical. You really see who is destined for birdhouse-carving-and-home-made-upside-down cake-baking success and who will still be having someone else doing her laundry when she's 30. I am one of the latter. Haha. The pillow idea ties into keeping Pi Phi in your dreams or have the comfort of your Big Sis or Lil Sis, even when you are away. Cheeseball, yes. But cute.

Some other traditions for Lil's...
- Family Letters
-tuck ins
-Big Sis revealing week-So much fun. Each day is a basket with a different gift theme until Revealing night. 1st day -baked goods, 2nd day- flowers, 3rd day-everything with letters on it (liscence plate holders, mugs, candles, stationary, shirts with the spelled out letters, magnets etc.), 4th day-fraternity serenades (this is a big hint of the fraternity that serenades you is the one in which your Big's boyf is a brother!).
I'm going to be a Big Sis for the first time as well next year and I am stoked. I hope it doesn't break my bank account!

PPL,
pbpck

We have a list of things that we have to buy our littles..that way no one get short changed..we always buy a standard jersey with whoever's LIL on the back..A decorated bulletin board...I like to buy a plain one and some silk flowers (whatever your sorority flower is) and glue them around the edge...we usually paint our family tree on it..then we decorate a pin box and usually a jar or cute cup..we buy them a lettered disk...no lavaliers....we make them a fabric covered scrapbook....we buy them a dozen roses...it ends up being like 600 bucks...but creativity counts...

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IF I PAID FOR MY FRIENDS, I DID NOT PAY ENOUGH