Burkhardt At Home, Made with Kim

Homemade gifts are great – and can feel personalized for the recipient in a way that nothing else quite says “from me to you.”

When we combine handcrafting gifts with creatively repurposing household items, we are also helping to delay or prevent items ending up in landfills. A win for the environment. Super!

Here’s an example…..

A trip to grocery stores and gift stores reveals that people like to buy – and use – scented candles. Just take a stroll down the candle aisle – the reason that there are so many candles available for purchase is that people buy them. Count me in!

However, burning these store-bought scented candles does not need to be a one-and-done. When I am done with a candle-in-a-glass jar, I clean out the jar to re-purpose as a future gift. “How,” one might ask. I have two ready-to-give gift ideas for this cleaned out glass jars.

For starters, when I am done burning one candle, I start burning the next candle….. As the next candle burns, I run-off the liquidized wax into the previous (and clean) jar and insert a new wick (wicks can be purchased from most craft stores). Then, I stick one one of my photos (I do photography) on the outside of the jar. Voila! I create a stack of ready-to-give gifts for whenever the occasion to give a gift arises (I have a device for making stickers – which is how I manage to add my photos to the outside of jars).

Another option for repurposing glass jars is to fill the jar with dried flowers. Voila! When I give these jars of dried flowers – potpouri – I often tell the gift recipient about collecting these dried flowers. “These flowers came from the events in my life – buying summer flowers, being given flowers, flowers for a special occasion, etc. By drying the flower petals when the flowers wear out and making potpouri, I am sharing a bit of my life story (i.e., the occasion of flowers) with you.” A great conversational piece!

It’s not just empty candle jars that can be re-purposed for making gift candles. When I purchase – and use – store-bought food, the food jars – when emptied – can also become candles for friends. In the example below, this food-jar-that-became-a-candle is an opportunity for conversations with friends about which fun-foods we buy – in my case, I like pepper jelly (the jar on the left is un0pened pepper jelly, the jar on the left is now a candle to give a friend). Woo hoo!

Another re-purposing gift – of sorts – is to laminate fallen leaves to give out as bookmarks. I collect autumn leaves when passing by a home where an ancestor used to live, collect leaves at local buildings that have social or emotional meaning for myself and friends, the locations from where we can collect leaves are endless! When I started giving these out as gifts last year, someone asked me how long the laminated leaves will retain their color. At the time, I wasn’t sure. I’m now finding that laminated leaves have a lasting ability to retain their color. Great!

There are any number of additional ways to repurpose used items to make great personalized gifts. Doing this simply requires a bit of creativity. Super!

Burkhardt At Home crafts personalized gifts. Come to us about individualized gifting for the people in your life. Ordering from Burkhardt At Home supports micro-businesses – a way to support healthy communities. Shopping from micro-businesses is a way to avoid over-commercialization and supports the livelihood of individual business owners. Thank you for supporting this micro-business!