A few months ago I showed you the gifts I made for my sister in my Martha Stewart took over my body post. Today I want to share you the gifts I made for the guys in my life.
I started with rocks glasses that I picked up from the local dollar store and I make stencils of their last name initial and frosted the glass to give it a personalized touch, cause you know – that’s just what I do!
While at the dollar store buying the glasses, look around and get distracted and end up finding some awesome camouflage duct tape to add to the gift! I mean, who doesn’t need more duct tape?!?
Then swing by your friendly neighborhood liquor store and spend way too long browsing the miniature versions of whiskey before finally just going with the guy behind the counters suggestion. Then run over to the cooler and breathe a sigh of relief that their sodas aren’t outrageously priced and grab a couple! Because yes, it’s easier to just buy what you need – plus, you are supporting a local small business and keeping your money here and not in the pockets of the big corporate CEO!
Okay, I’m stepping back down off my soap box now!
Now, put all of these items neatly together in a box… wrap the whiskey in tissue paper and shove place it gently inside the personalized rocks glass. Grab the least “fancy” tissue paper you have to stuff the sides to keep everything in place. Cause, you know, things need to stay in place, but they are guys and the pretty tissue paper would just be lost on them! Save it for your grandmother and girlfriends!
Then you need to rearrange everything half a dozen times before you give up because you realize that no matter how you try you cannot get the top of the box on and none of the boxes you have will work.
Now go grab a couple of gift bags. Empty the box out, take the aforementioned tissue paper and transfer it to the gift bags. Fill them up with all the goodies and place under the tree until you see the guys in your life!
- The glasses were $1
- Camo duct tape $1
- The etching cream I had left over from a previous project – so $Free
- Soda $0.50
- Whiskey on sale for $1
Gift bags and tissue paper I always have on hand, and never consider the cost of that, so for less than $4 I have a cute and personalized gift for the guys in my life.
All two of them.
Cool idea! I bet your guys loved it.
I am a co-host for Wake-Up Wednesday Linky Party and would like to thank you for partying with us.
-Tanya
http://tanyaanurag.blogspot.com/
This is a great idea! I always am looking for gifts for my adult daughters’ boyfriends. Thanks for linking up at Whatever Wednesday
I hope the gift idea does provide inspiration and thanks for stopping by!
Guy gifts are so hard! You’ve inspired me to go with duct tape and WD 40 gifts! thanks for the much needed inspiration – just don’t tell them I was here ok?
Your secret is safe with me! 🙂
Fabulous idea! Now for my family, I am going to need tiny bottles of wine! 🙂
I love the tiny bottles – I’m always looking for a reason to include them! I haven’t tried decorating wine glasses — Yet.
Best gifts are of those personally handmade ones! Lovely!
Thank you for sharing! Cheers~ 😀
Thanks! I really love making gifts to give away – so thank you for your kind words!
You’re welcome and that’s so sweet and generous of you to share your love with your loved ones!!
Have a wonderful day ahead, always~ Cheers!! 😀
P.S. am I the only one thinking of MacGyver when seeing the duct tape 😉
Wow, I haven’t even heard about “etching cream”! Sounds good, I’d like to try that. Where do you buy it, crafts shops? The glasses look fantastic! Selfmade gifts are the best!
I love self made gifts! Yes, almost any craft store will have etching cream. I’ve discovered that it doesn’t make a very dark etch… But it’s so easy to use!
And yes!! He comes to mind… I’ll see duct tape and rubber bands and all of the sudden I’m locking myself in and trying to escape the room!!
Fabulous! Very chic, and cost effective! I love the glasses ~ they turned out great! Oh, and the fact that you got small bottles of whiskey for $1? So cool. I just spent $2.50 on a bottle, when all I needed was 1 1/2 Tablespoons for a cake!
Oh no!! I would naturally suggest that you just make another cake, but the calories in that one would put us all in a coma if you had it too often!
Anytime I need liquor I drive a few blocks out of my way to visit this independent store, he’s the best and never tries to over sell me!
This guy would like that. Go Kate, Martha Stewart. I hope the recipients appreciate the gift.
I hope they do, too! 🙂 and thank you!
You go it.
Clever idea! The stencil looks challenging to me! You are right about the saving pretty tissue paper for the girls!
Thanks! And I laughed at myself because I just pulled out the tissue paper on top, looked at it and put it back, then I dug through to find the plain paper!
Those turned out so cute!!! Perfect gifts for them! 🙂
Thanks!! I was worried it was too simple – but I think it came together nicely! I did get BA a beer cookbook and Bert homemade peanut brittle, which he loves – so I think I’m covered and under budget! 🙂
Great ideas Kate! 🙂
Thanks! As an anti-valentine day date gift this year I made a manly gift basket with a couple of small bottles of alcohol, tons of beef jerky, sunflowers seed… and possibly more duct tape! 🙂
Oh dear… that duct tape is making me a bit nervous now :))
The camo duct tape is cool, though I would be tempted to buy leopard print instead, ha ha. How hard is it to etch the glass like that? For someone who can’t even draw a straight line, I mean? 🙂
It’s not hard – I printed off the letters I needed in a font that would fit nicely on the glass and then used an exacto knife to cut it out of the stencil material. Then it goes on the glass, I use painters tape to hold it in place and then you put the etching cream on. It sits for like 5 min and then you wash it off! 🙂 The hardest part is making the stencil – but I wasn’t willing to spend the money to buy a pre-done one!
very cute idea!
Thanks! Fortunately, they are both whiskey drinkers, so that made it easy!