Personalized Gift Wrap

Here is a super simple DIY.  This is how I wrapped my baptism gift for my niece a week ago.  

I dyed some nylon rope, back when I dip dyed my hammerhead t-shirt.  I wanted to try out this heart knot on some material I had around the house, and this was what I came up with.  In the tutorial I followed, the lady used two different colored hoodie strings, which looked a lot nicer than this, but this is what I had around.  I still like the outcome, though.  I want to try it on sturdier rope, and a better color.  

I made my wrapping paper by cutting a cross out of a small potato.  You could cut out any simple shape from the potato, and use this technique for any holiday.  

I used the potato, and white paint to stamp the cross randomly on some craft paper.   It dried super quick, and I was able to wrap my gift, a personalized treasure box.  

The potato stamping technique is awfully useful.  Great for when you need a stamp in a pinch.  Especially if it's a stamp you wouldn't feel necessary to be a part of your regular used stamp collection.  Hope ya'll found this useful too.  Happy DIYing, chris.

Fancy Keepsake Box DIY

I'm home from Vermont, but this thing is still on auto pilot, because today I will be at my niece's baptism.  So I thought it would be appropriate to share what I made for her gift.  I haven't been to many baptisms, and this is the first that I am bringing a gift to, so I really had no idea what to give.  I've heard that bonds are a popular gift, but I figured she'd be getting a lot of those, and I wanted to give something a little more thoughtful.  My next thought was something personalized to commemorate this momentous occasion.  When I googled some ideas for personalized baptism gifts I didn't find anything that struck my fancy.  My family isn't religious, and it didn't make much sense (to me) to give my niece something with psalms, or bible quotes, or a giant cross, which seemed to be my only options.  There is a plethora of non-baby-friendly jewelry, giant crosses, and stuffed lambs as gift choices.  I had a really hard time thinking of anything that is baby appropriate and religious, but not overly religious.  

What I came up with is a suped-up wooden treasure box.  I had one of these when I was a kid, and I loved keeping special little things inside of it.  This gift idea seemed the most reflective of me.  I guess it doesn't have much to do with the ritual, but maybe she can store all her new non-wearable crosses  in it.  Or I imagine she'll be receive lots of pretty jewelry today. 

I bought a small oval shaped wooden box from Michael's, and I used a bunch of scraps of special decorative papers, and applied them to the box with Mod Podge.  

Here is the wooden box after I glued all my pieces down.  Sorry I don't have any pics of the process.  I simple traced the different parts of the box on the pieces I wanted to use, then cut them out.  I played with their placement before I started glueing them down.  Once I started gluing I had to keep going, because I was layering the next piece under the previous piece.  I covered the whole thing with paper and Mod Podge, and then I gave it a couple extra coats of Mod Podge.  

I painted the interior and the top lip of the box with acrylic paint.  They call this color ocean breeze.  I liked using non-traditional girl colors, plus of course a little pink.  All the patterns and colors I picked work perfectly together.  

Once I had enough coats of paint on, and everything had dried for at least twenty minutes I coated the whole box in satin varnish.  I applied three coats.  

To finish the box off, on the inside of the lid I wrote Annabel's name, and the date of her baptism.  

I also added a super cute Martha Stewart rocking horse fabric sticker to the top.  I hope she cherishes it as much as I enjoyed making it, but if it ends up in a closet collecting dust, I think I discovered a new thing I'm good at making.   

Well I hope ya'll had a great weekend, and happy DIYing, chris!