After 5 years of loyal service the dude’s laptop has gone to the Great Gig(abyte) in the Sky…and just what does that have to do with thrifty man makes?
Well, as the guy cannot function without a computer – and he’s not allowed anywhere near mine – the money set aside for his mini-holiday-birthday-extravaganza went straight into a fancy-schmancy-new-computer. I was commanded not to spend any money on b-day gifts – he claimed his froufrou new laptop was more than enough – but come on…everyone needs prezzies to open their birthday!
So, I sneakily created these beauties without spending a penny:
8 completely free yet totally awesome gifts that actually brought a wee tear to his eye!
onto the how-to’s:
Let’s start with his favourite…can ya guess what it is? How about what it was?
Give up? o.k…a scrap piece of wood and…the old broken air idle control valve from our car! huh?
Right, a quick bit o’ background: a mere month after we bought our new-to-us car the bloody thing stalled out whenever it slowed down! As it was a private sale there was no guarantee & the mechanics we took it to wanted over €1000 to fix it…enter Mr. Internet + the part from a discounter & my never-owned-a-car-before hubby fixed the problem for under €30! He was so proud of himself I decided to transform his achievement into an…ahem…work of art!
First, I scrubbed off all of the gunge & gave it 3 coats of spray paint
painted the scrap wood white & grabbed the munchkin’s crayons
drew on a ridiculously easy design
arranged the prettied-up air idle control valve, screwed it on & added a wire to the back for hanging
a super special little gift for nothin’!
Next, I pinched a pair of his old jeans & made him some hip new cuffed shorts. I simply measured a pair of his fave shorts to get the perfect length.
This one’s from the munchkin…
A fab’ old cigar box inherited from Tante Uschi
I gave the whole thing a coat of leftover paint, then slapped some chalkboard paint onto the inside of the lid and…
busted out the non-toxic kid paints & let loose the artiste
once it was dry I gave it 2 coats of varnish
…chalked on a munchkin message & had another groovy gift!
I finally had a reason to make some awesome zip-up ear buds – my zipper wasn’t quite long enough so I fed the end of the headphones through the remains of a necktie & stitched it to the end of the zip – dude lurvs it!
I’ve seen loads of recycled cell phone charger/holders online & thought I’d give it a whirl
I cleaned out an empty shower gel bottle, marked the basic shape I wanted & carefully cut through the plastic with my trusty exacto knife
I then sliced a large circle out of the center of the back for hanging and drew on a pattern that resembled (?) his trademark glasses with permanent marker
and of course I had to make him a family egg-y nest…
…which he immediately attached to his bag
last but certainly not least and my favourites – 2 funkadelic shirts
I picked these up for a whopping €1 at the charity shop a few weeks ago – hubs thought the brown one was “too plain” & the cool vintage checked shirt had a permanent stain I hadn’t noticed so they both went into the refashion stash – I pulled ’em out & got to work…
the too plain shirt was easy…some doodle stitching in various thread colours & zigzag widths livened it up in no time
yeah baby yeah!
the stained shirt was a teensy bit more challenging. I grabbed some scraps…
folded a large piece in half & sketched a half-me at the folded edge
cut myself out
and repeated with the rest of the family (unfortunately there wasn’t enough room on the shirt for our dog to join the patchwork family)
hubby got pinned over the stain…
…and triple stitched on
I then added myself & the munchkin
Cool beans, man!
So, there you have it! 8 thriftilicious, completely free gifts for the dashing dude in your life!
