A Handmade Gift Perfect For Friends

The trend of giving handmade gifts is not only limited to special occasions these days. In fact, it is becoming a common practice to people who would just want to give another person something special because that person truly matters to him or her.

If you are one of those who would want to give somebody, say a friend, something special because he or she helped you in any way possible, now is the time to consider what type of handmade gift you can give him or her. If you don’t have much of an artistic knack, the simplest thing that you can come up with is an elastic friendship bracelet as a "thank you." These are bangles or "wristlets" that are used as a piece of fashion accessory but in this case, these can be worn by your friend to symbolize the friendship that you both have.

The good thing about this is that it will not only help you save money by buying cheap materials for the bracelet but can also serve as a bonding activity for both of you. Aside from that, the process of making the bracelet itself is fun and easy. While doing the items, you and your friend can squeeze out your creative juices and each other to explore different possibilities of the craft.

Getting started

Before doing this activity, the first thing that you need to do is to ask your friend if he or she has time to do this activity with you. If she or he agrees, then make sure that your friend will be a part of the entire process such as choosing the materials, the designs, as well as the dominant colors to be used. The following are step-by-step process of making a handmade friendship bracelet:

1. Get the supplies needed. The first step in making the friendship bracelet is to buy the supplies needed which include sets of colorful beads of your or your friend's  choice, elastic nylon string, a pair of scissors, glue gun, pieces of glue stick, tape measure or ruler, and a round nose pliers if you choose to add locks and other metal items in the bracelet. You can find old stuff in your house or buy these in the crafts store nearby.

2. Designate tasks. Once you have all the materials that you need, designate your tasks. You can ask your friend to segregate pieces of beads according to his or her preference. Or to make the process faster, you can segregate bead pieces by yourself. Next is to come up with a bracelet design and draw in on a piece of paper. Here, you can ask your friend to come up with his or her design and incorporate it with yours.

3. Start with the process. After which, get the elastic nylon. Using a tape measure or a ruler cut the string according to your desired length with a pair of scissor. Then, gather the beads that your have segregated and selected earlier and start stringing the beads into the elastic string. After that, knot the two ends of the string after you threaded the beads in it. Make sure to tie the final knot twice so it will not loosen up. Cut the excess nylon string using a scissor. To make sure that the ends would not loosen up, you can put glue on the knots and flatten it with round nose pliers.

Now, you have just finished a special handmade gift that you can give to your friend as a "thank you" gift and as a remembrance as well.

 
I don't really understand why
but the focus of each cross stitch
and the repetition of each stitch
back and forward across the canvas rocked and
soothed your soul.
~ ~
 
Counted Cross Stitch is a form of counted thread embroidery, where the stitcher counts the threads up and over so that the stitches (X's) are of uniform size. Counted Cross Stitch can often include other stitches such as 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 stitches and back stitching used to outline areas for depth.

 
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This is the progress I have made on Red Riding Hood2. The first pic shows about 10 hours work and the second is after 23 hours of work
 
Finding Fairy Tale Stamps, among other amazing art work on stamps has lead to  new Cross Stitch projects for me that fulfills a sense of wonder with both cross stitching and stamp art. I just did not realize the extend of art on such a small piece of paper.

The other day I went to pay my monthly bills and realized I was out of stamps, so I paid some of the bills online. But this got me to thinking that stamps are one of the many daily things that will be coming to an end soon.

For over a hundred years governments have issuing stamps so that hundred of thousand of people could communicate with each other. This over time lead to some pretty amazing art work on stamps and to stamp collecting. But as I said before this may be coming to an end within, say the next 15 years. And that number is very conservative.

So be sure to check out the other stamp sets that have been issued and then re-created here at Crossed Fairy Tales.
 
One of he very best things you can teach your children and grandchildren is the love of reading. And there are a number of ways in which to instill that love. One is by reading aloud to your children/grandchild. But another is to fill their everyday life with the characters found in Fairy Tales.

Fairy Tales appeal to our very basic need of good and bad. Fairy Tales deal with basic human nature like obsession, jealousy, vanity and of course happy endings.

The Tales are told on a level that small children can understand the simple story and as time goes by, they can begin to understand the more serious side of the tales. By surrounding your child with the Cross Stitched images from Classic Fairy Tales you provide a connection between reading, the stories and of the love from someone who cares