Gift paper? Gift cards? Any ideas???

[jorendell]

I've set up a "Get Crafty" group in the residence hall where i am living. On our first evening we made collages which was great fun. Next session, we thought we'd have a go at making gift wrap and/or gift cards. Does anyone have some good crafty ideas? We only meet for an hour, so it would have to be something we can do in a pretty short amount of time.

[Getcrafty.com!]

[Nancy Flynn]

Did you see Project UK's article about monoprinting on the home page?

I don't know how long the prints would take to dry, but it looks like you could probably get some gift wrap done pretty quickly-- you could bring line drawings for people who don't draw to trace on paper perhaps?

And there are always rubber stamps- you could get an alphabet, a few colors of ink, and a few pretty stamps for people to use...

[nerf]

I guess it might be a little immature, but if you don't have rubber stamps, and one of you is handy with a knife, you can do potato printing. Just cut a spud in half, carve away into a shape (star or tree I guess for christmas), dunk it in acrylic paint and print away. It's the sort of thing preschoolers do I know, but its still fun.

[acebeader]

My mom always stamps her tissue paper, so she can use it with plain bags. It looks really nice. That would be something inexpensive and fun for a whole group, and you could do the potato stamp thing too!

[scarlet_A]

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=9922.0
check out this shaving cream marbling topic over on craftster...i did some with white butcher paper and it turned out really wonderfully...it doesn't take long to dry, either, as you just sort of blot it. it's a little ungainly to try to do big pieces of paper, but it's certainly not impossible if you have a big oven roasting pan or a really large cookie sheet to hold the foam and color.
:) be careful to get the unscented shaving cream, though, or you'll smell like two-for-one night at the singles club.

[sarabell]

I guess it might be a little immature, but if you don't have rubber stamps, and one of you is handy with a knife, you can do potato printing. Just cut a spud in half, carve away into a shape (star or tree I guess for christmas), dunk it in acrylic paint and print away. It's the sort of thing preschoolers do I know, but its still fun.

my sister did this on brown shipping paper using white and gold acrylic. looked nice.

[Selah]

I like the marbling or stamping ideas. You all could use paper grocery bags, cheap and crafty.

Cool that you started a crafty group.

[pinkbouncyball]

I vegetable print all the time and it works really well, it is inexpensive and you get to create your own image. I don't think that is immature at all.

[happyhats]

You could buy large rolls of brown packing paper, some paint, glitter, and other misc art supplies (stickers, stencils, stamps...anything) and let everyone go wild! You could buy some inexpensive cardstock as well, and do it all on the same night.

[punkinpie_prod]

Go to your local newspaper office and buy a roll of there plain left-over paper. They sell them here for about 5 bucks for 10" thick roll.
Then go crazy on it.