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12 Make Your Own Gift Ideas

For mindful gifting this year why not make your own gifts with love and lessen the load on the planet….

This is such an exceptional time of year, whether you celebrate Christmas, the solstice or just the pure joy of having the time to share food and fun times with your family and loved ones, quite simply it is the season of sharing.

And have you noticed how the spirit of human kindness reaches its highest peaks around this time of year, it seems to be the one time of the year where we all feel more for the people around us? This year, more than ever, we are being called on to tap into our common humanity. So, because it’s about the little things, the Eco Atlas team sat down and brainstormed some thoughtful ideas to #MakeYourOwn gifts, to deepen the meaning of gifting and also lighten our consumer footprint. After all, the greatest gift you can give anyone is your time.

Some tips for you to #MakeYourOwn gifts are to…. visit second-hand stores; you might find inspiration there in glass jars, pillow cases, old tops and books. Also, think of the person you are gifting, his/her likes and dislikes, interests. #MakeYourOwn doesn’t only need the time investment in the actual making, but also the thoughtful process that goes into choosing the right idea, and that there is the love.

1. Bake Off

Instead of buying commercial sweets (with huge amounts of sugar and palm oil), you can make your own. Anything from home-made granola, chocolate or cereal bars, gingerbread or even doggy biscuits! You can store it in glass jars, which you could even decorate. The plus of gingerbread biscuits is that you can even use them as decorations. (Always try to remember any dietary requirements.)

2. Tea Leaves

If herbs are your thing and know how to mix them well, you could make a personalized tea mix, with dried fruit too. You could buy a tea strainer and gift a complete tea set. Rebeka, our friend from Hanoi gave us this idea and she adds home-made labels so you can write your own messages and attach them to the box with a string. If you’re in doubt, pop by Lady Bonin’s shop in Woodstock. The Lady knows tea, really.

3. Shopping Bags

You can never have enough tote bags for shopping – sew it yourself or get a blank one. You can then use textile markers, acrylic or fabric paint or embroidery. If you choose to use acrylic paint a good way to make an even pattern is to make a potato stamp. Cut a potato in half, draw the pattern on it with a pencil and cut around the pattern. (The same kind of stamp can be used for making your own wrapping paper this season!) It’s a very practical, yet cute present and it’s environmentally friendly.

4. Knit It or Crochet It

Use the person’s favourite colours to knit or crochet a mat, coasters, pot holders or oven mittens. These are tutti frutti inspired beauties, perfect for beginners. This idea works for children too, if you use their favourite superhero colours!

5. Tops for Your Fitness Friends

You can use a plain T-shirt to make a fashionable top for workouts for your yoga or gym loving friends. You can keep the T-shirt as it is or cut it to make a different design. There are a lot of videos on how to transform a T-shirt into something new. Once you have the desired cut you can decorate the top, using markers or paint, or cut out pieces of fabric and apply them to the top with fabric glue. (If you don’t feel like decorating them yourselves, you can always look up a carbon-neutral printer, like Hot Ink in Cape Town, and ask them (nicely) to print your design.)

6. Body Products

Make a luxurious body lotion for your friend and attach the recipe, so that they can learn and make it themselves. Another idea is to make a batch of natural toothpaste and add a few compostable toothbrushes, with a note that doesn’t comment on the person’s breath ;)

7. Sourdough Combo

Make your own sourdough starter (look here for inspiration), put it in a jar and attach your favourite bread recipe. It takes 5 days to start your starter, so get ahead with the prep! If bread is your thing, you could add a bread bag, made by transforming an old pillowcase or old sheet into a bag. You could even make two little ones that can be used as sandwich holders. This idea was inspired by a site called Life Without Plastic, check it out.

8. Personalised Journals

There are many ways to personalise notebooks and folders by covering them with some of your friends’ favourite images. You can use the same technique to cover notebooks or journals. You could even make recipe notebooks, following the same technique.

9. Skill Vouchers

Maybe there is something you do that your friend or family member loves too. Anything from icing, decorating, social media tips, make-up tutorial, sewing. The gift is a voucher from you to help them with this skill/passion, ensuring that you will also spend some quality time together. You could give a voucher for anything, a home cooked meal, a massage, some time in their garden.

And now for some ideas especially for children….

10. Advent Calendar

For those who celebrate Christmas there is nothing quite as exciting for children as the count down to that special day of gifting and family sharing. Why not make your own advent calendar for your child, or, even better, make it with them. Some ideas are to create a ladder from the stars and an angel or star could make its way down the ladder each day until it lands in a nest of soft cloud on the last day. Or make an angel or star from soft wool and she can move along stars that you have cut out and stuck on a large piece of card until the final day which could be a painted matchbox with a little thoughtful gift inside. (See the photos for visual descriptions) And if Christmas is not your thing you could use this idea to count down to any special day of significance in your culture, religion or family traditions.

11. A Memory Book

Children love looking at photos and we live in a digital age where we hardly ever print out any photos for them to hold and pore over. A great tradition at this time of year is to choose 10 or 20 of the best photos from your child’s year and make a book of memories for them in a small photo album. (Admittedly there is a lighter footprint if you just look at photos digitally and don’t print them out, but a book of photo memories will have more meaning AND a lighter footprint than most of the imported gifts lining the store shelves!)

12. Your Time

There are loads and loads of ideas for specific gifts you could make with love for your child, here are some great DIY ideas and have a look at these 101 ideas too, they will inspire some wonderful #MakeYourOwn gifts. Ultimately though, if we want to decrease the stuff coming into our homes and live with a lighter footprint then the best gift of all you could give your child this season (and every season) is your TIME. The time to cloud watch, play a card game, read a story, look at photo albums, build a sand castle, bake cookies, dance in the lounge and tell silly jokes til your belly aches. Ask your child what they need to feel loved. I did and the answer was “More hugs, more cuddles and more time with you mommy”. Well there you have it, in a nutshell. Give the gift of time.

Wishing one and all a meaningful season of togetherness, sharing, giving, gifting, fun, compassion and kindness.

This blog was collaboratively written by Rhian Berning, Clotilde Angelucci and we also drew inspiration from Rebeka, from Hanoi, Vietnam who sent us some of her awesome ideas. Thank you Rebeka!

November 26, 2015

Eco Lifestyle

Make Your Own Whipped Body Lotion | Eco Lifestyle

This body lotion was the first body product that I ever tried out at home. I had been researching for quite some time on how to be more resourceful and limit the waste I produced; at the same time, I was secretly sabotaging my good intention, by not buying all the ingredients, procrastinating, or telling myself it would never be as good as the store-bought one.

Then, I came across a website called trash is for tossers, brainchild of Laura Singer, an american girl who lives a zero waste lifestyle. The site is very inspiring and provides handy tips on how to lead a zero-waste life ; while browsing, I watched her tutorial on how to #makeyourown whipped body lotion and that was all I needed to break away from my can’t do attitude. My partner -in-crime Sara and I decided to try it out together, while sipping some Live a Little (Stellar Organics) wine.

The recipe is easy to follow and execute, and it feels awesome on your skin, especially because you know exactly what you’re putting on it! Since then, we have been making it all the time – it is a great idea for birthday and Christmas presents too.

The recipe, you might ask?

You need equal quantity of each ingredient, depending on how much you want to make.

Four ingredients for a home-made moisturizing body lotion©David Peter Harris

For this batch, I used the following:

1/3 cup organic coconut oil (it is very moisturising);

1/3 cup organic shea butter (it stimulates the production of collagen against fine lines and wrinkles);

1/3 cup sweet almond oil (rich in vitamin A and E and helps repair sun damage);

1/3 cup cocoa butter (it is rich in antioxidants);

your favourite essential oil/combination of oils.

Tools: a spatula, a hand/stand mixer and a glass jar.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, place the bowl on a pot full of water (double boiler) on the stove; let all the ingredients melt (roughly 10 minutes) and remove the bowl.

Melt the ingredients on a double boiler ©David Peter Harris

Once it cools down, put it in the fridge until it becomes solid, about an hour.

A little patience is needed here. Let the bowl cool down before putting it int the fridge ©David Peter Harris

Once the mixture is solid, remove it from the fridge and it is time to whip it! Laura says you can use either a stand or hand mixer – I used a stand one – whip it for 5 to 10 minutes, until it reaches the consistency of whipped cream.

Whip the lotion until it forms picks ©David Peter Harris

At this stage smell the whipped cream; it is so delicious you might be tempted to eat it. If you don’t enjoy the cocoa butter smell, you can use less cocoa butter and more shea butter.

Now, add your favourite essential oil, or your favourite combination. I really love the lavender oil, it smells so relaxing – add 5 drops or more, according to your personal taste.

Add some drops of your favourite essential oil ©David Peter Harris

Pour it in a mason jar and Voila, you have your own eco body product!

I store it in the fridge in summertime, and out of the fridge in winter – I usually put it on after showering, I find that it absorbs better.

Here is the link to Laura’s video on how she lives a waste free life.

If you’re not up for making your own body cream, or can’t find all the ingredients, but would still like to go the natural route then have a look at Faithful to Nature, they really research their products well and they’ll deliver to you! Just make sure to reuse the jars : )

November 5, 2015

Eco Lifestyle

Make your own – guava preserve | Eco Lifestyle

Jam and preserve have the power to trigger involuntary memory to recall childhood moments. The great combination of fruit, sugar and pectin will always be summer mornings, waking up to the smell of fresh bread baked by my mom, mixed to fresh coffee for a glorious breakfast before hitting the beach for the day. I associate fruit preserve to winter too; jam tarts cooling where minutes seemed like hours, when my siblings and I waited in anticipation for the goodness to cool down before we could taste some (P.S. I never waited long enough). When my parents moved to their new place, we all discovered that on a corner of the garden stood tall a guava tree. The tree grows naturally; without the use of pesticides, we prune it, year in and year out. The tree thanks us by bearing an abundant amount of fruit. The first few years we ate lots of guava; we quickly reached full capacity though ( and so did our neighbours, our friends, colleagues and everyone with whom we shared our annual harvest) and felt the need to find a new life for the beautiful citrus fruit.

One day, Nonna dropped by with a few bags and filled them up with guavas and off she went without saying much; the next day, we had preserve. Since then, every winter we make our own guava preserve and store it away for summer days. Besides enjoying the cooking process, I love the idea of taking advantage of what is in season for the following months, it makes me feel respectful of what Nature gives us.

Some perfectly round guavas © David Peter Harris

For this post, I asked my lovely partner in crime David to help me out with photos, so that I could show how easy it is to make preserve with the fruit of your choice. Thanks Dave! The recipe

Ingredient checklist ©David Peter Harris

The recipe comes from Nonna – most recipes I found on the internet call for an equal amount of fruit and sugar, while Nonna puts a little less sugar and it tastes just perfect. Since we mention it, I would like to say that my body cringed a bit when I saw the needed sugar quantity. However, sugar does not only give preserve its lovely consistency, but it prevents spoilage, even after the jar is open. Remember that home-made preserves will never taste as sweet as the mass produced ones; also, you can choose what sugar to use. Without further ado: 1kg guavas (peeled, chopped and after the seeds have been removed) 650 gr sugar (I used organic brown sugar) 1 lemon 1 medium apple or 2 small ones If you have more than 1 kg, you can adjust the sugar/lemon/apple quantity. Follow the 8 steps to delicious guava preserve. And so we begin

I love peeling the guavas ©David Peter Harris

1) This is a fun task: peel your guavas.

Carefully remove all the seeds ©David Peter Harris

2) Removing the seeds is quite a crucial (and a bit tedious) part of guava preserve making. Try remove all the seeds because once they are cooked they become hard and, therefore, a real danger for your teeth. I throw the seeds away since I don’t have a good strainer. If you strain the pips, put the pulp you get in a little pan and cook it for 10 minutes, then add it to the chunks. Weight it up!

3) Put the fruit on a scale. I was lucky because I got 1 kg on the dot (it never happens!). You can definitely spot some seeds on the chopped guavas, and that’s ok, it’s home-made! Dave left the house for the next two steps, so the visual is missing but my description is painstaking. 4)Pour the chopped fruit in a pot, with the apple cut into pieces and the juice of one lemon, on the stove. I use a heat diffuser, which spreads the fire so that the pot receives equal heat. Cook it for 30 minutes, until the fruit starts bubbling up. before adding the sugar. Put a lid on the pot and stir every 15 minutes or so for a few hours until…. When are we done?

Rule of thumb for jam making ©David Peter Harris

6) Cook it for roughly five hours; the golden rule is to cook it until the preserve sticks a little to the teaspoon. 7) Let the delicious concoction cool down for a few hours; in the meantime you can wash your jars (I used three jars for 1 kg of preserve); I wash them in hot water and soap, rinse them, then I dry them in the oven for about 5 minutes. I personally love decanting the fresh preserve in glass jars, and I find it difficult not to eat in between jar filling, right off the stove!

8) Before closing your jars, spread some sugar or a drop of liqueur, that fights water condensation on the surface – water condensation would allow mould to grow.

I never manage to keep my preserve until summer, unless I hide them in my pantry ; when I make preserve, it becomes the main ingredient of my breakfast. Since the end of the guava season is nearing, I urge you all to spend the coming weekend cooking up a delicious guava storm!If you do, remember to send us pictures of your beautifully delicious jars.

September 17, 2015

Tag Archive for: make your own

12 Make Your Own Gift Ideas

Make Your Own Whipped Body Lotion | Eco Lifestyle

Make your own – guava preserve | Eco Lifestyle

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