These projects represent a range of handy skills, including sewing, painting, cooking, and gardening. I hope you find one that fits your talents or challenges you to try something new.
1. Wine cozy A good bottle of wine is the best standby gift (I like Côtes du Rhône). Show added thoughtfulness by sewing a small cozy.
2. Cork trivet: If you're a wine drinker or have hosted your own party recently, this project won't cost you a dime. The only downside is that it can be a little hard to cut the corks, and you will definitely want to use a thimble for the stitching. Overall, it's worth it; I made one of these for my dad for Father's Day several years ago, and he loves and still uses it.
3. Hand-printed tea towel: Tea towels are always handy, and printing can be easy. Buy a few plain cotton or linen ones, and try one or several ways of printing - linocut blocks, potatoes, lotus root (Image 3), stencils, et cetera. Just make sure you use paint that is made for fabric and you set it properly with an iron. (For paint I like Setacolor by Pébéo).
4. A jar of jam or fruit butter: Making your own jam is much easier than it sounds, and I go into it knowing I will share most of it. I love this recipe, but now would be a great time to try apple butter. If you want to avoid canning, you will have even more impetus to share your jam before it hits its approximate 2 week expiration date.
5. Painted china: Pébéo Porcelaine 150 will be your new friend for decorating tea cups, platters, bowls et cetera. For ideas and techniques, check out LoucheLab's "How to" on Etsy, Martha Stewart's tips or a video from Dick Blick.
6. Tea or candies in your own packaging: In the same vein, there are many ways to dress up a quick treat of your host's favorite tea or candy. Just one option is to put them in a half print mason jar with a customized label or just a nice fabric top tied with ribbon. Get creative with your container.
7. Personalized plants: Plants make people happy. You can create a planter or terrarium for a variety of plants, or decorate a terra cotta pot with paint markers or a quick, knit "cozy."
Images: 1. Brett Bara for Design*Sponge 2. Design*Sponge 3. Namoo Handmade 4. Emma Christensen for The Kitchn 5. LoucheLab 6. Martha Stewart 7. Style Me Pretty 8. Giant Jeans Parlor 9. Laure Joliet for Apartment Therapy
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That wine cozy is so cute. I'm not very good at sewing, but I can imagine folding a tea towel and tying it to the bottle of wine with ribbon. Of course, my gift would be a bottle of wine and a tea towel, not a tea cozy. :)
Pi, like you, I am lousy at sewing but love your idea of a tea towel tied with pretty ribbon. Thanks for that idea!
I am sooo glad you posted this article and now, so that I can get fired up and get something done!! :)
the wine cozy is cute, but I don't understand why you need one.
llllllove the ideas!
I don't really understand "cozies..."
I was just thinking the same thing. What is the point of a wine cozy? But a handmade wine bag would be cool because then the recipient could regift it later, and then that recipient could do the same...
Thrift shops are lousy with wine accessory gifts-- in the history of mankind, has ANYONE ever used such a gift? Five years ago it was those little pieces of wine-glass jewelry that were supposed to differentiate people's glasses at parties-- a different color or design for each.
I consider this a preview of next year's thrift shop offerings.
@Shirley-temple-of-doom ew my mother just LOVE those little wine-glass jewelry...
The wine cozy thing is cute but I think it might a single-use gift, which is sad...
I have a variation on the cork trivet that was given to me as a hostess gift. It's the top of a wooden cigar box with the whole corks glued in on their sides. It works really well as as trivet and would be even easier to make than cutting the corks.
one more useless thing. sorry, no thanks...
More posts like this please!
All well and good, but the host usually needs a drink.
I use wine glass jewelery; the point is to know whose drink is whose. Most people don't have them so I usually end up making my own with whatever I can find lying around. Otherwise I'd get a chorus of "is that yours or mine?"
I agree, more posts like this would be great. I recently bought 2 cases of mason jars - the wrong kind. Almost useless to me, until now! I realized they will make perfect "packaging" / gifts for everyone. Thank you!!