Customer Holiday Project Ideas

A customer came in with the idea that she wanted to create an advent calendar for her daughter to use year after year. Carol Jo, went right to work with giving her an idea.

This idea comes from the book 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse, one of our fave books in the store and an excellent Holiday present.

It is an advent calendar created from Altoids containers. Our customer purchased small pieces of card stock that would cover the front and paint for her young daughter to create a front decoration for the container. As well she got magnets so that the tins would stick to a metal surface.The store of course has mass amounts of supplies for this project from the Altoid boxes to the things to put inside.

The book where the idea came from is so great because after a little Googling we were able to find the creater's blog and directions on how to create this project. It's such a treat as it can be used year after year and can be filled with any fitting toy for the child's age that year. Here are the directions. 

Another customer came in with a mission. She purchased 50 of our small jewelry sized boxes. Their is a book she had gotten her idea from- Silver Boxes: The Gift Of Encouragement.

The concept with this project, is to fill the boxes with well wishes for people who do good deeds and leave them in locations for them to find them. It's giving appreciation to people without receiving appreciation for your notes. Quite in the spirit of the holidays.

Holiday Present Ideas

It's sometimes hard to get going on projects. A lot of the materials we get are from people that have such great ideas that, well.. things don't get off the ground.

So they graciously donate them to us at The I.D.E.A. Store and we resell them to you, our customers! So perhaps someone needs a little inspiration. How about a project that they can finish? The image to the left is of a pillow pattern that could easily be redone.

So then take a project that has already started or perhaps one of our other pattern samples, package it with some of our great fabric and voila! You have a great holiday present!

An interesting way to re-do old embroidered or cross stitched pieces. Add another design over the top.

Fall Projects

Coffee filter wreath makes for a nice holiday decoration. Here's a basic example that requires ribbon, a cardboard (or other material) circle, and coffee filters- all available at the store.

Many variations possible. Perhaps dying them a different color- reds, greens, orange.. or attaching other things such as fall foliage.

Here are the original directions and more pictures.

They suggest gluing them on, but we're not a big fan of glue around here. You could use a hole puncher and sew them with yarn, wire, or maybe more plastic vine foliage.

Easy fabric project that we most definitely have the supplies for.

As well as these pot holders for placing warm bowls of food on the table with.






Many different ideas about creating beautiful table arrangements.

We have some glass containers, wood pieces, feathers, tree wrap, pine cones, cinnamon sticks, corks, foliage, ribbon, and gold flowers. All of these combined would make for a fabolous display!

Plus of course our large selection of fabric could be used for table runners.

And just one more idea out of straws that we of course have.

And needles and elastic cord.

Check out how to do this here.

Featured Item of the Day- Trophies!

Trophies are something we gather here at the store. If you really think about it, what's to happen after someone receives a trophy keeps it for a while proud of their achievement but moves on and no longer has a use for it?

Do they end up in landfills? Can they be melted down and used again? How can they be recycled? All questions this blogger had today.

Well, we have some ideas of course.

Here's a picture of one possible project, to create a coat rack! We've already implemented this in the store in multiple locations and it's working very well for us.

But some more ideas on how to reuse trophies are:
Cake toppers!

Or..
How about this amazing art piece?

Another volunteer's project

Lovia Henderson is a lovely new volunteer we have who is a wealth of information about sewing, crocheting, and other fabric material projects. She makes baby clothes and donates them to the hospital for the newborns.

We're so lucky to have such great volunteers, when you visit the store it's much more then just purchasing products. We want to offer you opportunities and discussion about your projects. Have a question about how to create something? Many of our dedicated team can answer your questions and make suggestions. And if we can't we'll probably try to find you someone who can.

Spotlight Item- Glass Stoppers

Here's some ideas for all of these glass stoppers-

1) Chess pieces, they could probably be shaped to be other things.
2) Making your own beer or wine? Maybe these will help.
3) Glass castle tops, which someone should definitely do and send us pictures of.
4) Glass figurines
5) A component of a lamp?

More ideas? Let us know!

Suggested item of the day- Educational Work Out Books

Books on movement, working out, etc. We received a large amount of these and are looking for the lucky party that really wants them. Many are just older versions, still very good.

Or what else can you do with them.. working on a collage? Some great images that can be used.

There are many ways to re-use books in general as well. This article has some interesting projects.
http://www.wikihow.com/Reuse-Books