Christmas Gifts

 

I am about to ruin some Christmas surprises for some of my friends.... yes it's February and I still haven't mailed out all my gifts! I am not quite sure what has happened to me in the last 3 months.... work, wedding planning, work, wedding planning and more work is pretty much the summary!

  

Each year I try to do a wee Christmas Elf workshop and hand make about 12 gifts for girlfriends.  Last year I made recipe books, the year before it was baking sets. I have done dinner party kits, Christmas baskets and who knows what next year will be! 

This year I was so bad. We didn't do Christmas cards apart from close family and friends that we handed gifts to and there was no international shipping... next year I will do better! I did however manage to do the homemade gifts. 

 

I had seen this idea on a website I LOVE called not on the high street. See here for a similar idea.

  

1. I bought a heart shaped punch at Michaels in the States. I LOVE Michaels and would spend all my money there if I could. In the UK you can find a similar item at Hobby Craft. See here. 
2. I then asked my lovely girls to send their (and their partners) top 9 places in the world. The answers I got were so interesting and most seemed to be holiday destinations, childhood home addresses and places people had lived. There were a lot of similar answers too. I asked for them to be as specific as possible. ie. West End of Glasgow City Centre etc.
3. I then used google maps and typed in the locations and dropped them into a power point presentation.
4. I printed off the 9 pages for each person in colour.
5. Then using the heart punch. I punched out the 9 hearts with their location in the middle. 
6. I then punched out 9 sky blue hearts per person and backed these (using spray glue) onto the map hearts. 
7. I then got a peice of white paper the size of the frame and worked out how to lay the 3 x 3 hearts. Ideally I wanted a square frame but when we went to IKEA they didn't have any! You can see the frame I wanted here. The Ribba frames are great and come in all sorts of sizes. 
8. I then backed each heart with four craft foam pads. The ones I used were 3mm thick but see here for 2mm thick ones. When I layed the hearts backed with the double sided pads onto the white paper it made them raised above the paper and gave a 3D effect. 
9. I then popped the white paper into the frame and viola! Easy peasy! 
10. I think they would definitely look better 3 hearts x 3 hearts in the square frame but I think it still gives a good effect. 

It was a very personalised, quick and inexpensive gift that all my friends have loved!

  

Hanging on our wall. I am sure it will be a great talking point in people's houses. I can imagine guests asking why they have the places they do and what meaning they have to them.

 

A wee close up. So many of my friends had New York as one of their favourite places to be- me too!