Open before Christmas

Share the joys of the holiday season with handmade gifts delivered early.

You can make these custom offerings and deliver them early so your friends and family can enjoy them throughout the Christmas season. Choose from these four ideas: hand-painted napkins, elegant ornaments, touched-up dessert plates, and personalized tags. And here's our gift to you-- they're all fun and simple to do.

EASY NAPKINS

Purchase packages of paper napkins in various sizes, and add a holiday message or drawing with gold and silver paint pens. This makes a great teacher's gift.

SILVERY BALLS

Transform plain clear balls into beautiful ornaments with silver accents. Use dragees (silver candy beads) purchased from the grocery store or wherever you find cake decorating supplies. Randomly glue the candy beads to the ball with a glue gun. Finish with silver ribbon. (One note of caution-these are delicate, and beads will pop off if not handled and stored carefully.)

PLATES FOR HOLIDAY SWEETS

With glass/ceramic paint add a holiday border to the edges of clear dessert plates. Use a pointed writer tip on the paint bottle to achieve thin lines. Wrap up a set of six or eight in alternating colors.

SEASON'S GREETINGS

With a package of tags, sheets of vellum paper, a star-shaped hole punch, and colorful cording, you can create personalized holiday gift tags. Add colorful wide stripes to plain white gift tags with craft paint or markers. Cut vellum slightly smaller than the tag, and punch star shapes across the bottom. Use a gold pen to inscribe your message; then tie the two together with cording.

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Dec 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved