Handmade souvenirs - making cool crafts from improvised materials

Small cute gifts become great items during holiday greetings. Most often such useful or just cute knickknacks are purchased in stores. However, often these gifts are quite expensive in terms of money, and there is a high probability to buy the same things.

It is much better to make souvenirs with your own hands from improvised materials.

The advantages of handmade

Needlewomen have always been valued in Russia, and even today manual labor can be a good additional, and sometimes main, income.

Making things with their own hands will be a good pastime for the hostess herself, and maybe for the whole family.

This is a great way to get rid of unnecessary things that have long been lying on balconies, entresols and in closets.

Additional pluses of handmade can include:

A great opportunity to switch from work problems and household chores;
the possibility of making an original or useful thing;
the ability to get rid of unnecessary things for their own benefit;
the ability to reduce the cost of buying gifts or earn a little money to create unique handicrafts.

Making souvenirs will help develop diligence and attention to detail, artistic taste and creativity. Small details of future gifts develop fine motor skills and strengthen the neural connections of the brain, which is especially important for children and the elderly.

Materials

Any materials can be used as sources. They can be:

wood, in all its forms: sticks, boards, spokes;
cloth;
yarn;
paper.

As decorations can be used:

lace;
ribbons;
beads;
coins;
rhinestones;
shells and anything else that has not yet found its place.

Souvenirs from wood

Wood will be an excellent material for creating nice souvenirs. It has a natural beauty, regal fragrance, warm texture, ease of handling.

Of course, to obtain even surfaces will have to ask for the help of an adult man, although modern electric jigsaws will help cut wood into even pieces and a woman.

Saws

Saw cuttings are thin circles from the trunk of a tree, they can have quite different sizes, depending on what part they were cut from.

The simplest, but cozy souvenirs, will be all kinds of frames from such circles. Frames can decorate:

photos and pictures;
mirrors;
Kitchen coasters under the hot or under the instruments;
Home key holders.

All this requires only cutting the wood into circles of equal height, varnishing them, and gluing them to the prepared base.

For people who have a talent for art, it will be quite simple to make unusual Christmas decorations, simply by painting a piece of wood.

If you have a little experience, you can make entire panels, gluing spokes with ribs.

Branches

Branches of trees are suitable for creating unusual:

candlesticks;
vases;
lampshades;
hot plate holders;
Battery screens.

Soft twigs or vines make charming baskets. They can be presented to lovers of embroidery and knitting, they are suitable as a gift for gardeners or picnic lovers, and tiny baskets will be wonderful candy holders.

Handmade Easter souvenir for children for the contest can be made from a wicker nest with chickens sitting inside made of yellow pompoms.

Boards

Small boards will help to make the most unusual shelves or chopping devices for cooking. And to give the souvenir an unusual look, the surface can be decorated with the technique of decoupage: drawing a ready-made picture on the surface. Such a decoration will surely become a completely unusual gift, and a variety of pictures will help to make it suitable for any event.

Fabric

With the help of fabric leftovers you can make so many items that it will be very difficult to list them all. The simplest souvenirs can include:

Kitchen towels. They can be decorated with the future owner's initials or embroidery on a particular theme.
Aprons.
Gloves. Especially unusual look such souvenirs in the style of patchwork.
Rugs.
Tablecloths. And it is not necessary to be able to embroider with a smooth or cross stitch, as it was done in antiquity. A cheerful tablecloth can be made with multicolored scraps.
Pillowcases. These items can become part of a bedroom set or represent the decoration of decorative pillows.
Original curtains from strips of fabric or ribbons.

For those who have been working with fabric for a long time, it will not be too difficult to sew a bedspread with lush bouffes or elegant folds. And beginners can make a cozy cape in the style of minimalism.

Ribbons will help to make an incredible beauty of flowers, which are used to create brooches, headbands and hair bands, bracelets.

Thread

As well as the fabric, threads give a huge scope for the application of imagination and the embodiment of the flight of creative thought.

Charming topiary will be a great gift for a woman. To make it you need to take only a balloon, thread, glue, a cocktail stick, a pot for house flowers. All of this can easily be found in every home. But the admiration of the recipient of an unusual plant will have no limits.

Remaining balls of yarn can be used to make pompoms. From the fluffy lumps later you can make:

Ornaments for a keychain, handbags, clothes;
accessory for hair;
soft toys for children;
unusual rug;
photo frame.

If you want to try your hand at "real" work, you can knit a soft scarf or warm socks. Both do not require great skill or talent.

In the future, the set can be supplemented with mittens and slippers.

Paper

Paper souvenirs are becoming one of the most favorite crafts. Most often paper is used as blanks for artificial flowers, which later go to the production of sweet bouquets, unusual cards, greeting boxes and handbags.

And the cards themselves can be a real work of art, especially if you decorate them with the technique of scrapbooking or quilling.

In recent years, very popular are self-made photo albums. They are usually presented for weddings or the birth of a child.

Other materials

As other materials can act:

cones (they make pretty baskets);
Twine (mats, vases, cat scratchers, lampshades);
food (this includes sweet and beer bouquets, fruit and snack baskets);
plastic (souvenirs made of this material will please mostly dacha owners);
candles (they can be unusually decorated with lace and beads or decorated in the technique of decoupage).

In general, you can use almost anything to create unusual gifts.

Handmade Easter gifts and handcrafts for any other holiday will never go out of fashion and for a long time will delight their owners with the warmth of their handiwork and warmth of the soul of the manufacturer.