Homemade Little/Big Gifts

[copacabana]

Paint pens are a GODSEND! I'm making stuff for my big and I pretty much just bought some inexpensive stuff (picture frame, clipboard, mug, etc) and go nuts with paint pens and glitter.

[rocketgirl]

i have a soror who made these cute t-shirts. she took a plain tee and took lace and hand stitched our nickname on the tee with the lace. they look really cool and very inexpensive. didn't take her very long either. you could do it with lace or any other fabric and put anything on them. could be very customized

and i ditto the paint pens. i should buy stock in that company because i have a ton and have gone through a ton and will buy a ton more.

and dollar stores are the BEST place in general. you can alway find little figurines in your colors or your symbol or weird little things in your colors. it's great

[PinkSigma3]

I decorated SO much stuff with paint pens and puffy paint!!!
Photo albums i just glued fabric over them to make them pretty.

So many good ideas keep them coming! I wanna spoil my two littles!!! (that i got last night)

[Senusret I]

Bookmarks:

I stole this idea from my mom, who made them for our family reunion.

Materials:
Paper (any color will work, but the parchment-like kind is really nice)
A color printer
Laminating paper or whatever it's called


So basically I have sponsored someone for membership in my fraternity, and I will be making him a lot of gifts and purchasing several. But I didn't want his line brothers to go without. So I will be giving them token gifts of BOOKMARKS for their history books.

In Microsoft Word, I will create a text box no more than two inches wide, and perhaps 7 or 8 inches high.

I will insert images related to my fraternity on the top and probably bottom.

In the middle I will place the name of the new member, their line number, chapter, and Spring 2007. Maybe I will also put "From Rashid Darden" etc on the back.

Print them on the parchmenty paper..... laminate them.....BAM. The majority of the work will have been in creating the design.

And the nice thing is the whole process is so simple that it could be used for as many new members as you want, as personalized as you want. Your only limit is your laminating paper.

I will post more cheap gift ideas later -- I gotsaplenty.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by AChiOhSnap

Oh, one other really cute thing (and I'm sure many of you are already familiar with this technique) my friend bought two big pieces of fleece from Jo-Ann Fabrics in her sorority colors and made a blanket. You just make an equal number of cuts (about 1.25 in apart and about a finger's length deep) into the fleece on all sides of both pieces. Then you lay one piece on top of the other and square-knot the corresponding pieces of "fringe" together. So you come out with a really cute blanket for pretty cheap. As an added touch, my friend bought letter patches and glued on her little's initials into a corner of the blanket. It was super cute.

I know this post is old, but maybe you (or someone else) can explain this to me? if im visualizing this right, would it be a reversible blanket that is held together by knots on the edges? i cant see how this would look, but id like to try it!

[tld221]

the first handmade gift i made (which was awesome at the time but looking back... )

good ol' paint pens (in org colors of course!)
tea light candle holders (i guess they could be anyshape, but visualize little sake cups - that's the size i used)
marbles (sized proportional to the candle holders)
candles (the short stubby ones that will fit inside the candle holders)

this is becoming harder to explain...

ok, so i sat the candle inside the candle holder (theyre glass, btw)
then surrounded the space between the glass and the candle with marbles

decorated one side of each candle holder with each letter (in my case, 3). feel free to decorate as such - polka dots, stripes, outlining, etc...

then turn them suckas around 180 degrees, and write the corresponding greek letter out (ie. "sigma" on the opposite side of S)

this way, when you put them on display, you have a choice which side you want to show off. i guess you'd have to do some reshuffling (ie. when it says SGR on one side, the other side says "rho gamma sigma") but it works out great if your org is palindromic (ie AKA, SSS, DTD).

AND, this cost me less than $10! (if you already have the paint pens, under $5)

[jadis96]

I forgot how much I used paint pens! We always had problems in our suite with never having enough cups. It became a tradition that everyone had their own cups with their names and such on them so I used paint pens to make one for both my littles. I also went and got some cheap baby bottles and I, along with the other bigs that year, painted our little's names on them and filled them with candy. It was a little nod to them being the "babies" of the family.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by tld221

I know this post is old, but maybe you (or someone else) can explain this to me? if im visualizing this right, would it be a reversible blanket that is held together by knots on the edges? i cant see how this would look, but id like to try it!

You've got it right! My roommate actually got complicated and made a striped one and sewed letters on and stuffed it with another layer of fleece and such so it was big and fluffy, but the basic is just a reversible knotted blanket
Ignoring the fleece scottie dog, that's what it looks like. Though I've also seen really tiny knotts instead of big ones... but that's more work

[tld221]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

You've got it right! My roommate actually got complicated and made a striped one and sewed letters on and stuffed it with another layer of fleece and such so it was big and fluffy, but the basic is just a reversible knotted blanket
Ignoring the fleece scottie dog, that's what it looks like. Though I've also seen really tiny knotts instead of big ones... but that's more work

to quote the movie classic Bring It On, "you're the poo!" that blanket is really cute!

[Phigirl04]

My big made me a fleece blanket that folds into a pillow with out letters sewn onto the front and she cross-stitched the date and my name and her name on it. It is so adorable and great for traveling. Now, I need to call her and have her explain how she did it.

[ΑΓΔSquirrelGirl]

Wooden letters for your organization, signs (we make tons of signs, because they know it takes us a long time and feel good that we care that much), candle holders, a wine or margarita glass (in your colors, in case you can't put your letters with alcohol...or in your little/daughter's favorite colors), tables/stools/trays (decorate with paint pens, ribbons, tassels, whatev...a stool is $10 at WalMart), a pillow you cover like the blanket the talked about, or if they live in a dorm or chapter house, you can take some kind of hard board (like a mini chalkboard, or foam board, or a small piece of plywood), glue magnets on, and put "Susie is...", then "in the caf, going crazy, in the library, nunya" or whatever by each magnest. It's easy to decorate, and you can put glitter or something on the magnets. I also took foam board and with pain pens and command strip made some bulletin boards. Get tacks in your colors, or letter tacks from a greek store. Picture frames are so easy to decorate, too.

I got little things like their favorite drink/candy, red buff and green nail polish, red buff and green chapsticks, red buff and green candy...you get the picture.

[KSUViolet06]

Some homemade things I did for my Little:

*Lots of stores like Target carry stackable boxes like these that people use for storage. I painted them & decorated them with our letters (using paint pens), filled them with Sigma goodies (pens,paper,etc) and gave one to her every day.

*Craft storescarry wooden letters that you can pant and decorate. I spelled out her name (Tiffany) in block letters, painted them purple, decorated them with stencils, and gave her one letter a day for the whole week.

*I also bought a plain scrapbook and decorated the cover with the clear decal type stickers of sailboats & our letters.

[tld221]

so in making this no-sew blanket - how much is considered "cheap" when buying fabric? i went to a fabric store yesterday and found some royal blue fleece (though it had a more terry cloth feel, so its heavier) for $2.99/yd.

now i need to find some pretty gold/yellow/goldenrod fabric, but since its going into spring, i doubt ill be able to find fleece or any winter-y type fabric. suggestions on some alternates?

[tld221]

Originally Posted by tld221

so in making this no-sew blanket - how much is considered "cheap" when buying fabric? i went to a fabric store yesterday and found some royal blue fleece (though it had a more terry cloth feel, so its heavier) for $2.99/yd.

now i need to find some pretty gold/yellow/goldenrod fabric, but since its going into spring, i doubt ill be able to find fleece or any winter-y type fabric. suggestions on some alternates?

ok, i used some last call/bottom of the bin fabrics. the first pic (the front) is that fleece/terry cloth material) and the second shows the back - there are actually 3 layers (where the gold comes in), those other 2 layers are felt!

i was anxious to make a trial blanket, and it actually came out OK - i will give it to my soror's baby (she's about to burst any day now!)




the only thing is that maybe i'm tying the knots too tight, because now it doesnt lay flat - its all concave and what not (like a fitted sheet for a mattress). how to fix?

[ZTAPrincessGMU]

I painted a Jewelry box for my big and I made her and I matching big/lil necklaces. I also plan on making her a pillow with a picture of our fam on it.