Do you wrap your wood working gifts?

[Larry Bud]

I made a side table for my sister for Christmas, and wondering if anyone attempts to wrap the gift to make it somewhat of a surprise?

[Anonymous]

Perhaps try to get it into her house without her knowledge and let her just sort of discover it. Its a wonderful look on someones face when they first see it.

[RWM]

I always wrap the gifts, unless it is something really big that will not fit in any box. I figure if I can do the work to make it, then I can spend the time to do a nice wrapping job. Storage rental places have a large variety of boxes.

Bob McBreen

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Something that large may be wrapped in a "non-traditional" paper. Sort of like the Sunday comics rather than $50 worth of fancy paper. Ed [e-mail]

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Bicycle shops usually toss out large numbers of very large boxes. Using two bicycle boxes, one could easily enclose a side table.

Barry

[barry.meyers]

Larry,

Sorry, but I can't avoid being snide. Why don't you just step outside the box and be innovative about how you present this gift. Think about what these people like, and what you can best do. If the situation warrants sneaking it into the house, then do it. If the situation warrants tying the greatest bow around this table and carrying it into the house, then do it. If the situation warrants wrapping it in newsprint then do it. What happens if the situation warrants a combination of the above; don't get confused, "Just do it."

Larry, none of us can tell you how to wrap this present. It can only be you. You need to be innovative. Consider the recipient, your relationship with them, their proclivity towards fun, your bent towards fun, your innovativeness, their, .....

Larry, you can figure this out.

[Silvan]

spend> the> time to do a nice wrapping job. Storage rental places have a

I had fun with the chess box I made for Dad.

The only box I had big enough to hold it was a monitor box. Lots of room to eat, so I filled it about 3/5 full of branches from a Christmas tree we're not using this year. I threw some plastic beads in there so it would rattle interestingly.

I wrapped the chess box in wax paper for good measure, then two layers of wrapping paper. Then I dumped a bunch of shavings from the making of the project into the box, made a nest, laid down a sheet of cabinet liner stuff to make it easier to extract the item, then snugged it home.

I covered it the rest of the way over with shavings, then I threw in this really horrible board I made. It's quite ghastly. When making my first board, I glued the light/dark strips together, then cut them into checkered strips. They were way out of whack, so I didn't use them. I went back to those for this. The "squares" aren't, and they're anything but flat, with huge glue blobs and major alignment problems. I laid those together into a chess board, then tacked some ugly, splintered plywood with odd holes drilled in it around the outside edges to hold them together loosely, nailing a couple strips across the bottom at an angle for good measure. I covered the whole mess with a half quart of poly/mineral spirits mix that had gotten cold and turned to Jell-O, rubbing in some grass, dog hair, and rusty steel wool for good measure. It came out with awful blobs, blotches, bubbles, and the gooey, badly-cured layer of finish is 1/8" thick in some places and bare in others.

So I have this piece of total crap right on top, capped off with a ritzy looking House of Staunton bag filled with these really nasty, flimsy plastic pieces from a $3 chess set.

I've got my sob story rehearesed too. "I'm sorry, Dad. This doesn't look very good, but it was the best I could do. I worked really hard on this."

I'm looking forward to giving it to him. :)

He's going to be floored when he unwraps the *real* chess box. If I do say so myself, it came out pretty damn well. My next one will be better, but this one looks every bit like I spent 100 hours working on it. Because I did! I figure it's a $1500 chess box, for a bit less than $100 in materials. (If only I hadn't had to use plastic pieces. At least they're really nice looking plastic pieces.)

[Nova]

Guess which one he's going to bring out when he tells anyone that come to his home, including the UPS delivery person, saying "Look what my son made me for Christmas." :-)

-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

[Larry Jaques]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:31:21 GMT, Nova brought forth from the murky depths:

I saw a solid glass chess set at WallyWorld for $6.73 the other day. Half the men were clear, the others frosted. Not bad, either. That's for next time, guys. Sell the board, sans men, on *b*y for $10, too.

-- Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud. ----

Comprehensive Website Development

[Renata]

Ages ago, when I bought mom a new dryer, I had 'em deliver it on Saturday (wash day) while she was out. She comes back and

*eventually* (took forever, it seemed) gets around to going down to the basement to do a load. The big squeal of delight (I presume) was well worth it. Now, she couldn't help but notice something different, aside from the big bow on top - the old dryer had been tossed a while ago so something occupying it's space was quite apparent.

So, I personally like the idea of trying to sneak it into the house and let them notice something different. But, as a nother poster said, it's worth considering the specifics of the folks and situation and come up with someething creative.

Renata

[Larry Bud]

I'll remember that if you ever ask for advice. You should be able to figure it out.

[Charles Spitzer]

i saw the exact same set at harbor freight for about 3.50. it really is a race to the bottom.

[Larry Bud]

We all get together on Christmas day, and she already knows WHAT I'm making, but has no details on it except that it has a medium tone finish. Maybe I'll just throw a big plastic bag over it so it doesn't get wet.

[Jay]

Why not make a crate for it out of some material of your choosing. Make the crate into a gift as well.

For example...

Make it out of white pegboard. Add a hinged door. Call it a dog carrier. Make it out of plywood with a hinged top and call it a Christmas tree storage container. Make it out of cedar and call it a deck box or Linen Locker.

You get where I'm going here...

Once you have a crate, you can wrap plain old wrapping paper around it. Then tie a big bow :)

Jay

[Silvan]

Replying to a reply here:

Not likely. Dad is too busy working to ever spend any time at home, and he doesn't have any friends to share (either one of) the thing(s) with.

He's not going to take care of it either. It's really quite depressing what he will doubtless do with this. He doesn't take care of anything.

I d> I saw a solid glass chess set at WallyWorld for $6.73 the other day.

I can't sell on eBay. No credit cards, and damn if I'm giving anyone online any of my bank account numbers.

I've seen the glass sets you speak of. I have one. I don't like playing with it because it's not really obvious which is "white" and which is "black." The frosted pieces are more opaque, therefore "darker," and should thus be "black," but they look more white than black. The clear pieces look more light or dark depending on the substrate under the board. I know it sounds like no big deal, just assign colors arbitrarily and play your color, but I find it's really quite distracting.

[Charles Spitzer]

sandblasted glass will take paint well. you can make them any color, or even use tinted dyes with varnish over them.

[Cape Cod Bob]

Could you at least go to the store and BUY a big red ribbon for the top of the garbage bag?