Simple Gifts: Part One

I know you don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it. But, here it is anyway: The Holidays are coming and there's no time to dilly-dally. In the world of crafting, that means that those of us who give handmade gifts are already about two months behind. So, for the month of September, every Thursday I'll be posting some simple hand-made, inexpensive gifts that you can whip up in just about no time.

Today I want to talk about trivets. These are so simple! And inexpensive?! Puh-leeze! I bought these 5.75 x 5.75" tiles at the local hardware store for about a dollar each. One thing to note is that you do not want to get a glazed tile. Glazing makes the ink slippery and hard to work with, plus, unless you have a way to re-glaze them, there's no way to permanently set the ink and it will scrub right off with very little effort. So, go with unglazed "stone" tiles.

That said, the only ink I used on these was StazOn. It's also helpful to have some different colors of permanent markers (like Sharpies) on hand, but it's not critical. Once you have ink and stamps, it's very simple. Wipe down the tile with a barely damp cloth to remove any of that chalky, dusty residue that tiles are famous for. Then, quite simply, stamp on it.

For the example above, I used Blockheads stamp set Grunge It Up and StazOn colors Teal Blue and Black Cherry. I colored in the little center square with a teal colored Sharpie.

For this trivet, I used Royal Purple StazOn ink and stamps from Blockheads sets: Backgrounds For All Occasions and Floral Ornament.

For this trivet I used Olive Green and Hydrangea Blue StazOn ink. I used stamps from Blockheads sets: 123 Backgrounds and Cornflower. To get the color combination on the cornflowers, I turned the stamp upside down and tapped Hydrangea Blue StazOn just on the flower part, then did the same for the stem and leaves with Olive Green. When using StazOn inks you have to work fairly quickly doing this so the ink doesn't dry out before you have the chance to stamp. The only other thing I did was to color the middle of the flowers in with a yellow Sharpie.

That's really just about all there is to it, except that I like to finish them off by adding felt guards to the bottoms. Presuming that these will be used as hot pads, this will help keep any residual heat away from the table as well as protect the table from being scratched. You can pick up felt guards at any hardware store for maybe a couple dollars a package at most. I always scour dollar stores for stuff like this too.

That's it! Simple (and quick!!) Gift. And if you want to, you can add it to a basket with a package of coffee and maybe some kind of quick bread, or soup mix, or cookies and tea, spaghetti fixings... anything!