Using Craft to Create a Gift

Craft and creative applications of craft have strong transformational properties. With just a few well placed craft accents, you can transform a fairly ordinary item into something incomparable. I had forgotten a colleague's birthday and could only find a box of post-its to give her. It was incredibly dull and drab, hardly something worth presenting or receiving. But with the help of the folks at Itsy Bitsy and their exquisite embellishments, I soon had a treasure to offer.

This is what the post-it box looked like to begin with. Extremely uninspiring sandy brown, clearly not a gift for a woman and certainly forgettable.

Here's a collage of the articles used in the creation, all available at www.itsybitsy.in or their stores in Bangalore and Delhi.

From the color scheme you can tell we wanted a dried flower vintage look to the whole piece. We started with pasting the vintage paper on the jute sheet, which is something really unique. It gives an extremely natural feel to the project but is glue friendly and workable.

This was then glued onto the top of the post-it box providing an even space on all the sides.

Next we arranged the flowers, roses and daisies around the top left hand side corner. Once we were satisfied with the placement, we glued them down.

To add a little character we glued a strip of the jute paper across the bottom right hand side corner. A craft butterfly at the center of this band was the finishing touch.

Voila! The gift box was ready. Perfectly crafted and embellished as if it was purchased that way. It made for a beautiful gift, one that would certainly demand pride of place on my colleague's desk.

Isn't it great how gifts can be created through craft? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment or link with details of the gifts you crafted and let's all get inspired!