Basket with Love

I find that one of the most beautiful gifts from the heart is to send a basket filled with goodies. It can be for any occasion; to show appreciation, to offer an apology, to send your best wishes for a wedding, to congratulate someone’s graduation, for being a great new mum. It can be anything. And the basket can be filled just about anything that you want. The receiver upon receiving it will feel truly happy.

What I do is, I first decorate the basket according to the occasion and to whom it is being sent to. A young teenager would prefer something more trendy in décor and the basket perhaps be filled with stationeries or bling-bling. An adult perhaps would appreciate a book or some Ferraro Roche balls.

This basket was created for a wedding. When I first chose the colour theme, I was quite apprehensive because the colour may not be the bride’s choice. Here I have a yellowish orange basket. The colour may clash with the bride’s choice for example, she may like blue. So it is a bit of a trick and some sixth sense one needs, to get the right colour theme. For me it was just that and I was glad that the bride had her whole wedding decor in that colour but I would suggest that you ask the bride for her favourite colour… just to avoid disappointment.

A closer look at the basket:

Here is another view:

Some time ago I made another basket for a new mother. I chose red, the safest colour. Ha! Ha! Well, you may want to know why it was the mother I was giving the gift to and not the baby. As you know, almost everyone will buy gifts for the baby forgetting that the new mother truly needs our support to cheer her on as a new journey begins. Yeap, it is tough bringing up just a child. You struggle against so many negative elements. All one needs is to flick open the newspaper any time and you will read about so many families in distress. It is disheartening so I have decided that I will lend my love and support to the new mother.

The picture is unfortunately not very good:

Gift from Heart

The other day a close friend of mine came running up to me all frazzled. I tried calming her down but it was impossible. Finally I decided that I would serve her a cup of my mother’s favourite oolong tea, believing in its true essence of soothing nerves. She grabbed the small cup from me and gulped it down, almost instantaneously she spluttered out its contents on me. By this time I wasn’t sure who was more shocked; she or me. I stared at her hardly able to smile while she stared back at me with the obvious look of wanting to skin me alive. But she was fast in recovering while I was still gapping at her. She fired a series of advice that I should be more careful in serving drinks before she sputtered out a very absurd statement.

“Elaine, you are so good with your hands.”

I stared at her, frowning. Her presence for the last ten minutes had done nothing but caused havoc to my emotional stability and now this … Sensing that her words were confusing me, she rephrased that she needed a present for a birthday tomorrow. Well, the supermarket is full of gifts that one can buy today, I offered my suggestion. She shook her head wildly. No, she wanted something that was handmade. It would be more personal. Now, it was my turn to feel desperate. What was I suppose to do? Asking for something last minute was not really good. My mood for one might repel, for instance now and thus it would be most difficult for me to settle down to create that personal gift not to mention if my stock was enough to put a gift together. I might not have them. I mentally checked my supply and wasn’t too happy with the remaining stock. Shall I turned her away and be guilty of not helping a friend; after all she had been so unreasonable.

However I found myself asking her for details and at each supply of detail, the noose round my neck became tighter. But I had to ask; like whom she was giving the present to (hoping fervently that it would be an elaborate one so that I could give an excuse that I didn’t have the necessary stuff) and the age of the person and most importantly how ‘intense’ did she want her present to be. What I meant was, how deeply connected was she with that person (a very close friend would entail a more detailed and elaborate gift) and the purposeful use of the gift; for decoration or for a use to store something. She was befuddled.

Yes, there is the whole load of things one needs to know in the event of giving a gift. So with this purpose in mind, I have decided to put together a book to help gift givers to create something beautiful, with a personal touch that comes from the heart and one that can be done at leisure or when the creative mood flows.

Every item that you see here is my own. I certainly hope you will enjoy this book and find it a useful guide in creating your own gifts. It will be one beautiful past time with the bonus of your friends admiring your handiwork.

Friendship Bears

Have you ever wondered how to cheer up a friend and feeling helpless when you can't even find a single comforting or well meaning word to say? Then you go on to think of buying her a gift. First, you really don't know what to give and when you hit upon a good idea you knew it was going to burn a hole in your pocket! What do you do?

You think long and hard. Book? No. No one in a bad frame of mind would want to read. How about a card? Well those cards in the supermarket to cheer a person up are often worded cheesyly (like this word). Flowers? Aren't flowers for lovers? Well, I am no different from you except that I found a way to personalize gifts - Friendship Bears!

FRIENDSHIP BEARS

I bought these little 3" bears cheaply in a China shop, and dressed them up... one by one. Then I packed it into a paper bag and gave it to my sad-eyed friend. I tell you the effort and time I spent on my bear was all (so, totally) worth it. I saw her light up instantly. Yes, the message that I want to send came across. I wanted her to be able to come out of her struggles and that I was available to help: lend a ear, a shoulder and an arm. Below are two close up of my cute Friendsip Bears. I hope you could cheer up your friends, too.