70's Crafty Christmas

 Here are some pictures from the Better Homes magazine hard cover home made gifts book.  There are so many uses for driftwood, yarn, milk cartons and construction paper. The whole thing is sort of cute for a child, however, this book was geared towards savvy homemakers. People don't feel comfortable decorating their homes with painted rock paperweights, macrame plant holders and milk crate book shelves anymore. I am all for re-purposing objects but re-gifting those items are a matter of taste and shouldn't be forced on a friend. If you don't have money you can always find something small cute and useful for a couple of dollars.  I mentioned before that people always appreciate baked goods and home made candies. You can even get the bread or cookie mixes and embellish them with nuts or butterscotch chips.

 We can make candles with cookie cutters and cup cake cups. I love candles!!! However, now it is all about Yankee Candle type scented candles, not wax smelling, black smoke, cough inducing candles of yesteryear. I don't care how pretty they look, they need to smell good as well.
Look, we can make a Nutcracker Ballet, finger puppet army.  Just look, boys love them too. My boys would only be interested in the guys with swords, it is just the way it is.

 I found this colorful display of gifts, featured below, extremely depressing.  I can't imagine being an excited child on Christmas morning and finding, what appears to be , a dead, armless clown, or that creepy face lady, wearing a big hat. I can't see the purpose in these items because I don't find them pleasant to look at even though their colors are so bright and cheery. They just don't say holiday to me..not to mention Christmas.

 Below are different ways to decorate gift boxes. There is yarn, felt, pom poms, cup cake cups and office supplies. I think they are cute but who has the time?  I can imagine if I went through the trouble of decorating a gift like this, I would be really offended if my giftee, didn't acknowledge the handy-work  and then see it ripped off and thrown to the floor.  That would be painful. Gift bags are the way to go.