Last-Minute Holiday Shopping (or should I say Crafting)

This week, Tapestry is celebrating amazing events! McKenna and Marisa are turning 18! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Also, we are having a White Elephant gift-giving party on Monday for the holidays! (And speaking of amazing events, Jessica Server, our guest speaker on Wednesday, was amazing)

Below is a guide to the greatest gifts for everyone on your list (or Santa’s) this holiday season/for their upcoming birthdays/just because. These gifts are, as they say, TAPA-CHIC (S/o Jaagrit)

• Coupon book in hand, buy pillow stuffing from your favorite crafts store. Gather your knitting needles and a copy of Tapestry 2012-2013, which you have on hand at your bedside table beneath a mug of tea, Starbucks, or tea from Starbucks. Knit a throw pillow with a front and back design matching last year’s Tapestry.
• Ride a bicycle to your nearest thrift store. Select the finest in vintage T-shirts. Turn them into high-waisted skirts. Pair with a Tapestry T-shirt. (A gift for non-members only, of course)
• Bake slutty triple brownies and arrange in individual cupcake tins. Place inside a vintage handcrafted découpage box wrapped in twine.
• Procure an encyclopedia from the local used bookstore. Sit down by your scrapbooking drawer. Cut out a keyhole shape from the second ¼ of the pages to create a hidden space. Select pages at random, and circle words for a blackout poem using light pencil lines. In your earth tone scrapbooking paper, cut out holes for each word of your blackout poem, and use a glue stick to secure the piece of scrapbook paper onto the page. Like you would for a textbook, use newspaper to create a book cover and secure with double-sided tape.
• Six different colored and different sized children’s books such as The Giving Tree, The Kissing Hand, The Polar Express, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Eloise, Where the Wild Things Are, The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• A basic gift certificate to ModCloth.com
• A basic thirty-year subscription to Netflix
• Louder Than a Bomb and Freedom Writers on DVD
• Audiobooks of Stephen King’s body of work along with a hard copy of On Writing (for those unfortunate friends and family members who haven’t taken Creative Comp)
• Sets of erasable pens and calligraphy pens
• Scrounge the aforementioned local used bookstore for a first edition or marked-up copy of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (which is what Eleanor gets Park in Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell!)
• A functional record player (Make sure your loved one does not already own one) and records he or she would like on vinyl (He or she will need something to play on it) with personal notes written on the backs underneath the song lists
• Gather your ten best pieces of writing or art from throughout your life. Sew and glue together like publishing companies would with a real book (More detailed instructions available online.) Allow five pages for a handwritten letter.
• Apparel from the college of his or her choice/his or her alma mater (which is what my parents got each other this year!)
• Write ten handwritten letters on ten different kinds of stationery, one each day for ten days. Make sure to date each. Use pen. Write first drafts. Write impromptu. Write about little memories and long opinions. Write about nothing. Lick to seal. Write his or her name on each one. Tie together with white or lilac twine. Or mail one a day (two on Saturday for Monday).

HAPPY EARLY HOLIDAYS AND NEW YEAR! (since this is my last post for 2013) Love, Dani