You’ve read about gifts we have given, however what we haven’t talked about is how many creative and thoughtful gifts I receive in return. My friend Jana is also gift-friendly and comes up with these immensely creative ideas that we will be featuring from time to time on Practically Perfect Planner.
When you “Event It”…(a 3P term) many times you are not creating the original idea, but putting your own spin on things that individualizes and personalizes. When Jana and I do lunch, we totally feed off of each other’s ideas and I just love that!
So back to the story: a few years ago at one of our gift giving/idea sharing lunches…Jana presented me with this festively wrapped, Thanksgiving themed gift box. Voila! I opened up a uniquely crafted centerpiece that lights up in orange hues and screams “Happy Thanksgiving”!
For me, every morning when I make my coffee I plug in Jana’s gift. It’s kind of like when you turn on the Christmas tree lights in anticipation of the holidays. It looks just beautiful in our kitchen and is a nice bright way to start the day:
Not only have I enjoyed this, but many family members and guests upon arrival to our home always comment on it. It’s placed in one of my home “event focus areas” and serves as a conversation piece. So, we thought we would share this great idea that can be customized for your home and for presents.
We were fortunate enough to get some tips from Jana how to make your own Holiday Light Block!
– You can order cases from a glass block distributor…OR you can get glass deco blocks with the hole for $6 on sale at Hobby Lobby, and in the past we’ve even gotten them at Michael’s (but check for availability and pricing, FYI: we used Michael’s coupons to keep the price down)
– If you can’t find a glass box with the hole, Jana has also drilled holes in one end to feed the lights in.
– Cut the end of the light cord and tape the ends with green electrical tape (opposite end of the plug)
– Feed lights into the glass block – but leave enough slack that the plug in-end can reach an outlet. You can see here how the lights are able to to fed through the hole in the box to an electrical outlet:
– Use ribbon, decor, or ornaments to decorate quickly for various holidays like Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas or birthdays. (FYI – we have customized this idea to a Valentine’s Day themed event with hearts and battery powered lights so we could use it as a centerpiece on the table)
For gift-wrapping and/or storage: boxes can be purchased from www.uline.com that the glass blocks will fit in perfectly.
We hope we’ve inspired you to create a sparkling holiday gift for someone you love! Leave us a comment and let us know how your Holiday Light Block turns out! Thank you Jana!
