Making Gift Baskets for Fun and Profit

Many people have an index style calendar where they note birthdays, holidays, graduations and other such gift giving occasions. Sometimes this calendar tickler file can grow very large. If your gift list is long and you find yourself shopping every other week, here's an idea that can help. Making gift baskets adds a personal touch that friends and family will appreciate. You can gather all the supplies you'll need in a single shopping trip with two stops.

A visit to a crafts store and a party supply house provides a complete inventory for making gift baskets for months. You can stash the supplies in a closet or a large plastic toy bin, ready to go when you are. You may find that this gift meets with such success and is so enjoyable, you may even want to turn this activity into a profitable home business.

Here's what you'll want to get in the way of supplies:

1. An assortment of attractive baskets. Get a variety of shapes and sizes. If food gift baskets are your thing, you might want to get more in a larger size. Smaller baskets are good for kid's Easter baskets, teen gift baskets filled with costume jewelry, nail kits and the like.
2. Lots of ribbon, lace and fancy trims. Choose those that the men, women and kids on your list will find appealing. Bundles of raffia and wide, flexible or gold wired ribbons tend to appeal to men and boys.
3. Check the crafts store for ornamental items like dried flowers, tiny figurines, battery operated light strings and anything that's decorative and may be attached with a glue gun.
4. Confetti or bags of colored plastic 'grasses' make good linings when making gift baskets, and don't forget tissue paper, available in designer style patterns.
5. A glue gun is essential and soft florists clay is useful if you'll be making gift baskets filled with a bouquet of everlasting flowers and stems as the gift.
6. Balloons and coordinated theme items found at the party supply cover birthdays, weddings and graduations. Party supplies stock an astonishing variety of cute little figures and ornamentals geared to these types of occasions, as well as festive decorations, such as a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

You can even make gift baskets well ahead of the occasion. It's a lot of fun to decorate these baskets, so when you're feeling inspired, get out your supply cache and go to town. You can also put the contents together as a do-ahead in some cases. For example, you can shop for your niece's birthday in bits and pieces, finding cute costume jewelry, facial masks, nail kits with adhesive decals and all of the things teen girls love. If you're filling a basket with food, it's accomplished in no time.

It's easy to develop a passion for making gift baskets. Hey, maybe you ought to build a website for your lovely creations!

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