Every once in a while people still ‘wrap’ gifts.  Don’t throw the ribbon away that was wrapped around a gift.  With a warm iron, smooth it out again, cut it in strips and make book marks from it.  You can even attach charms to one end, or line it with stickers from top to bottom.

Save a few for yourself too.  When you give a book as a gift, slide one in as an extra little something made by you.  They make cute items to give as party favors, or as a small gift to members of a club to might belong to.

Don’t throw out an old shirt or blouse without saving the buttons on them.  Beautiful button brooches can be made from the buttons, and a few scraps of odds and end jewelry pieces.  Watches that quit working can be used for the brooches, as well as small pieces of lace.  Start with a small piece of cardboard,  cut in a circle about the size you would like your brooch to be.  Cover it with a piece of fabric that is a little larger than the cardboard.  Adhere it to the cardboard, wrapping it to the back of the cardboard and gluing all the edges down.  Glue a brooch pin to the back.

Glue the buttons, jewelry pieces and lace scraps to the front of the brooch, in any way you feel is attractive.  If you like, you may want to overlap the pieces.  These brooches sell for up to twenty dollars or more at specialty shops.   They make excellent, inexpensive gifts for friends and family throughout the year.

You now have a reason for saving all of those birthday cards from over the years.  Make birthday place mats from them.  For this project you will need birthday cards, a roll of clear contact paper, scissors and a little imagination.  If you want to use only portions of the cards, cut them accordingly.  You may want to use the whole card opened up.  This will allow you to use one side with only the decorative sides of the cards, and the other side to remind you of the many greetings people gave to you on your birthdays.  Cut two pieces of rectangular sized contact paper.  Lay the cards as you wish, on top of a piece of the contact paper, after removing the adhesive backing.  Now lay the second piece of contact paper directly on top of the first.  You may need to even the edges of the place mat with the scissors.

Make a set of the place mats for yourself, and give sets to others as gifts.  You may want to make a place mat for each person attending a party to take home.  The place mats can be made from Christmas cards for family gatherings too.

Decorate the trunk of your car to look like Noah’s Ark, complete with all of those stuffed animals your children have collected over the years.  Hand the candy out from a feed sack.  Everyone knows he had to have a lot of feed for all of those animals on that big boat.  Draw the boat on a large piece of cardboard, or use a large roll of brown mailing paper.  This works well because you can draw the boards of the boat on the paper, and they are already the right color!

Mrs. Noah can be standing on deck, making sure the animals don’t jump ship (have a large piece of brown paper or cardboard surrounding the ground outside of the trunk).  Find a pair of stuffed doves (get them at wedding displays in stores) to perch on the top of the open trunk with a sprig of artificial leaves in one of their beaks.  You could also draw the doves on white poster board and tape them to the open trunk.

If you have two of some of the stuffed animals, place them beside each other.  The more believable you make the Ark, the more fun the children will have.  Place a bale of hay on the deck for Mrs. Noah to sit on, if she gets tired of standing.  The animals ate that while they were in the ark all 40 days and nights too.  Get the whole family involved in drawing the Ark.  Children enjoy all the activity of getting ready for festive occasions, and coloring is one thing they can do well.  Praising them for the art work they create will help build their self esteem.

If you would like to revive the look of the grout between your tiles, there are several products on the market to use.  However, you can usually clean them with products you already have on hand.   A solution of bleach and hot soapy water used with a hand-held scrub brush, will get most of the dirt worked loose from the grout.  Be sure to mop with warm rinse water to remove all of the bleach solution from the floor.

This solution will whiten the tile grout around bathtubs too.  Again, be sure to rinse the tiles thoroughly.  The tub must be rinsed until it no longer has a slippery feeling from the bleach solution to avoid falls.  There are products available to repaint the grout between tiles for stubborn stains.  These products can be found at most larger hardware stores.

Ribbon is one item that we all use throughout the year.  Ribbon roll holders will keep your spools and rolls of ribbon handy and tangle free.  You will need wooden dowel sticks about half the circumference of your index finger.  They need to be at least that thick so as not to bend with the weight of the rolls of ribbon that will be on them.  Cut a piece of yarn about six inches longer than the dowel stick is long.  Tie one end of the yarn around one end of the dowel stick.  Repeat the process for the other end of the dowel stick.  Hang by the yarn on a nail.

You can put as many rolls of ribbon on the stick as it will hold side by side.  When you need to use some ribbon, just unroll as much as you need and cut it off.  If you need to remove rolls of ribbon, just slip the yarn off of one end, and take the roll you need off.  Put the yarn back on, and rehang.  I hang my ribbon holder at the back of a coat closet.  It comes in handy all year long to have it there.

You will need a supply of card stock paper for this project, and a box of 5 3/4  sized envelopes found at office supply stores.  Cut the 11 1/2 inch side in half.  The piece you have now should be 8 x 5 3/4.  Fold one of these pieces in half again to form a card.  This will help you to see where all of the additional pieces added to the front of the card should be glued to, if you want them centered.

The fronts of the cards can be decorated with pictures you have cut out of other cards, as a recycling project.  The children may wish to draw a picture of their own on the fronts of the cards.  Carefully cut the portions out of cards you have received in the past, and glue them to the fronts of your new card made from the card stock paper.  Write whatever message you would like inside, or leave them blank if you would like to sell the cards for fund raisers in organizations you may belong to.

This is a project that children can easily do.  If you need a rainy day project for your child, or a project for a group of children, this one will keep them busy for a while.  These make handy card gifts to give to grandparents or teachers.  Everyone likes handmade gifts from children, and it will instill a sense of pride in the child to make this project by themselves.

Most department stores carry small bead boxes, found in their craft areas, that have about 24 compartments.  These boxes usually cost only a few dollars, and are well worth the money for the time they will save you.  They easily store beads, nails and screws, earrings, button sets, etc.

The compartment storage boxes can be stacked as high as you like.  Turn the boxes all in one direction, and label the end pointing out to make finding the items you need easier.  Placing them on a shelf in alphabetical order helps too.   These boxes will fit in tight spaces, such as in shelves on a vanity.  Rings, earrings and other jewelry may be kept safely in them, to prevent items from getting dusty.

Use them in kitchens and bathrooms to put very small items in that get lost in cabinets and drawers.  They will hold money as a cash box for yard sales or fund raisers.  Keep spools of thread or bobbins in them near your sewing machine.  The boxes are a wonderful organizer for anywhere small items need to be kept.

Those who enjoy reading need many markers.  These crocheted bookmarks are a nice gift to give anyone who likes to have several stories going at once.  You will need a few spools of crochet thread, a crochet needle and a few beads or charms.  Single crochet about 10 inches of thread.  Tie it off on the end, leaving a tail about 5 inches long.  Then slide two or three beads onto the thread tail, and tye off with a knot bigger than the last bead hole.

Many of these bookmarks can be made in an hour or two.  They are great sale items for bazaars and craft fairs,  because you can sell them reasonably.  Everyone will want to purchase several of them to give to their friends and relatives.  The bookmarks can be made with charms on them too, instead of only beads.  Children and youth enjoy collecting charms of all sorts, and they can afford to purchase these for gifts themselves.

Everyone likes to sing, even those who can not carry a tune in a bucket.  It allows us to express ourselves and helps us get through the day when we are having problems.  Sometimes we hear a familiar tune and find ourselves humming or singing it the rest of the day.  I’ve often heard people do this who don’t realize that anyone else is paying attention to them.  Songs have a way of lifting our hearts.

We all enjoy listening to choirs or groups who entertain us.  I’ll always remember the first time I heard The Beatles.  They were on the Ed Sullivan show one night, and the kids in the audience went wild.   No matter where Elvis had concerts, there were throngs of people who wanted to catch one of the scarves he threw into the crowd.  I remember the ending song of tribute to all of Bob Hope’s shows to the troops…Thank you too Bob…and I know where you are.

All of us are the stars of the show when we sing to ourselves.