Tuesday 11 July

The Gift That Gifts Back

When I was a kid, every gift-giving holiday came with a request from my mother to make her something. After a few years of amateur photo collages and tedious poetry I was plum out of ideas.

If only I had had a copy of I Wanna Make Gifts, by prolific writer Clea Hantman. The third in her wonderful I Wanna series, the author employs a combination of her distinctive offbeat humor and Azadeh Houshyar's engaging illustrations to guide tweens and teens through 144 very enjoyable pages of (what else) gifts you can make.

You'll find everything from checkbook covers, teacup candles, and clever homemade cards, to "weird and wacky" gifts like a collage tarot deck. Of course the inner fourteen year-old in me is partial to the chapter on rock 'n roll gifts like coasters made from old 78s.

Preorder the book here for a cool, crafty young woman in your life, and hope she makes you something fabulous to repay the thought. -Liz

Find More: Reads