Musical Gift Wrapping

A great craft night activity is to make gift wrap with friends. My sister, Devin, is purging all her CDs so we fashioned ribbons out of liner notes for our Christmas gifts. This creative reuse of found materials is a clever way to save money on gift wrap and works especially well if one is gifting music or something related. It is also just unexpected and can be easily personalized to the taste of the gifted. All you need to make gift wrap magic is paper bags, album art or any visually pleasing paper laying about (i.e. pages from magazines), scissors, tape, stapler and glue. Here are some I made from Talking Heads CDs and a British Invasion compilation.

Family Xmas Project: Graham & Seaweed Houses

My sister, Devin, and I have recently discovered that family holidays are much easier to handle when there is crafting involved. On Thanksgiving we cut leaves out of paper and have everyone write what they are thankful for on them. Then we go around the table and share before hanging them from the chandelier.

For Christmas this year, Devin pre-made mini gingerbread houses so everyone could decorate one. However, she was short on time so she used graham crackers instead. When she ran out of those after making the siding for 14 lil houses, she used seaweed sheets to make the roofs. Before they were decorated, it looked like a mini shantytown. Each house was different so as to choose your favorite architectural style. The case study houses of Neutra and Schindler were my favorites. My mom's and brother's turned into amazing Gaudi houses.



This is so simple to do, just mix water and confectioner's (powdered) sugar to make the paste to construct the graham cracker (or gingerbread) house and whatever nuts and candies you choose to decorate with. We just went to the bulk bins at Whole Foods for easy variety and complete edibility.