My Grandma Jane taught me to crochet at the tender age of 7. Over the course of my life, I have been very glad to have learned this skill. Lately, I've been spending some quiet moments each day working on cotton dish cloths:
The finished product looks like this:
I decided to raid my linen closet and came up with lot of little Gold Bond lotions that I picked up for free back when that printable $1.00 off coupon was available. I also found many small Old Spice body gels (also picked up for free with coupons) that I emptied into a larger container, washed, and carefully removed the labels from. I then filled those bottles with jewel-toned dish soap:
Mugs are readily available at dollar stores:
And voila:
A pretty mug stuffed with a hand-made dish cloth, colorful dish soap, and hand cream. I like gifts where the "packaging" is the gift- the dish cloth fills in where tissue paper might ordinarily. Quite simply, I hate spending money on things that are destined for the trash.
Total cost?
2/3 ball Sugar & Cream cotton yarn: $1.00
mug: $1.00
lotion: FREE
small dish soap: FREE
total: $2.00 and a little bit of time and effort
Great idea. I was unsure last year what the protocol was on giving gifts to therapists through First Steps. I missed the boat, but plan to this year. I'm sure I'll come up with something nearly free too... I've got a lot of Aveeno lotions from CVS that are just sitting around. Now if I just knew how to crochet!
ReplyDeleteI like your idea. My idea is not quite as inexpensive, but not too bad. Last year, I made refrigerator magnets for the other moms in our play group. You take flat sided glass stones (like you'd put into a vase for decor) and clear craft cement to glue bright fabric cut in the shape of the flat side of the stone to the stone. Then, cement a small magnet to the back. They turned out cute and I presented them in tins from Hobby Lobby with candy. So much of the supplies can be picked up on sale at Hobby Lobby at the right time.
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