What do you make for a guy?

An original poem by Molly who is obviously delirious from overcrafting and holiday preparation.


Besides candy and cookies and slices of pie,

What in the world do you make for a guy?

Last year he got art and duct tape flowers,

A new nifty idea's taking all of my powers.

He likes metal and chrome and things that go vroom,

But for that kind of stuff he hasn't got any room.

Oil and grease, tools or a lathe,

Pick that out myself? I'm not that brave!

The items on his list will cost me a mint,

All I'll have left in my wallet is old pocket lint.

So what do you do when you're in this position?

How about a nice magazine subscription!

How do you tell someone you bought them a magazine subscription? "Hey...you're getting some magazines sometime in the near future." Hmmmm. Doesn't really have that "gifty" feel. I just saw in a magazine (can't remember which one!) where they wrote a note and wrapped it up in a box. Good idea! Thank you magazine that I will credit once I have copious amounts of caffeine and remember.

The Manly Version

On a scrap of gray cardstock I traced around an actual wrench shortening it somewhat to fit inside the box I chose.

Here's the box I chose. Do I have taste or what? It was the packaging for something I just had shipped to me but it was a good size for the project so I stripped off all the packing tape.
You can see just behind it is some "diamond plate" scrapbook paper I actually bought at a garage sale this summer - I knew it would come in handy!


Before I did any paper application I painted all my edges black. This way, if there ends up being an edge showing, it just kinda blends into shadow.

I traced around each side I intended to cover on the back of the paper, cut out and glued on with regular old white school glue.


Looks awesome!

I added some "detail" to the wrench [please don't laugh at my artistic ability ;) ] and the message "Enjoy a year's subscription to Popular Mechanics" - if you haven't heard yet, amazon is having some amazing magazine subscription deals.

I shredded some festively colored newspaper ads and used them as filler in the box and set in the message wrench.

Now here's a creative way to let someone know their gift won't be arriving for 3-4 more weeks!

I was inspired by this project - check it out!

Linking to DIY Day @ A Soft Place to Land