Giving Arts and Decor Gifts For the Holidays

With holiday season quickly approaching, many people are facing the problem of what to get for those remaining on their shopping list. Whether you are just getting started on your holiday shopping or trying to finish it up, we have some great gift ideas for you. Have you always wanted to give a gift that was different and unique? Are you tired of the same old thing, year after year? If you want to get your gift-receivers something new and something special, you should try giving handmade artisan gifts and home decor.

You will find that unique gifts online are appropriate for everyone regardless of their taste in home decor. Help to brighten up someone's day by presenting them with one or more of these unique gifts.

o Night lights

o Shower curtains

o Wastebaskets

o Wall decor

o Birdhouses

o Picture frames

o Outdoor decor

Why give a handmade gift? There are many reasons for giving a handmade gift. For one, it allows you to express how you truly feel about the person and get them a unique gift that shows you really put time and thought into their present. Another reason is because you are sure to get them something they don't already have. You can also feel good about yourself and promote the arts by giving handcrafted artisan gifts and home decor items.

Home decor is a great gift-giving idea because you are giving something they can use time and time again. Whether it serves an actual function or just as a decoration piece in the home, your home decor item will be a gift they treasure for many years to come.

You might choose to give these gifts for birthdays or even at Christmas time. Handmade Christmas gifts make some of the most personalized and treasured items you can give or receive during the holidays.

Art is composed of many expressive disciplines. It refers to various human activities and artifacts, used to cover all aspects of skill or mastery. Art is an expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means of exploring and appreciating formal elements. www.made-from-india.com is a one-stop online information center on antiques & collectibles, brassware & brass handicrafts, diaries & calendars, handicrafts, incense & incensory, sculptures & paintings etc.

Children's Art Projects

Doing arts and crafts is a fun way to teach children the basics of painting, drawing and creating. All five senses are utilized during craft-like activities no matter the age group. Here are just a few ideas for anyone who has the desire to work with children. The following crafts projects can be used at home or in school settings. The crafts included here are meant for pre-school age children.

1) Fun Frames

Materials needed: scissors, glue, craft foam, googly eyes, stick on Velcro, puffy paint and sunglasses

Instructions: draw small animals onto craft foam and cut the shapes out with scissors. Shapes like turtles, seahorses, and fish are good. Glue on googly eyes and use puffy paint to add decoration. Once the paint dries, use stick on Velcro to fasten the animal shapes on the sunglasses. The children can pick their own frames to wear. This craft project teaches creativity and fine motor skills. Learning to use scissors at the pre-school age takes time. Also, the children learn how to work together and respect one another in choosing their own theme for the sunglasses. Drawing is also required for this project.

2) Flower Fairies.

Another craft project that is good for age 3 and up. Children at this age will need extra help gathering materials. They will need nature objects, card stock, crayons and glue. Objects found in nature could be leaves and flowers and small twigs.

First the children can be taken on a nature walk, lasting about 20 minutes. Help them put their collectibles into a small brown bag or plastic baggie. When everyone is back inside, make sure the children have a bathroom break. Then let each child draw pictures of themselves or just figures on the card stock. Using the glue they can place the nature objects onto the figures for dresses, hair, magic wands or fairy wings. The importance of this activity is to let the children be creative and choose the way they want their picture to look. This project teaches children about nature, art and drawing. Critical thinking skills also come into play. The child decides how to place the objects onto the figure and this requires analysis.

3) Diggin' Up Treasure

Materials needed: 20 or so small rocks, wax paper, 1 teaspoon of silver and gold acrylic paint. Other acrylic collared paints are also okay. One large sandbox.

Instructions: Divide rocks. Place some rocks into a sealable container. Add one teaspoon of silver acrylic paint. Shake until the rocks are coated. Place the coated rocks on wax paper. Rinse container and repeat this process with the gold paint. Make sure each batch is completely coloured. Use as many rocks as you want and as many colours too. After the rocks have dried completely, bury them in the sandbox. Send the children with plastic shovels and sifters to hunt for the buried treasure. This project teaches children their colours, counting and creativity. Almost all kids love to pretend at anything. Pretending to be pirates looking for buried treasure could keep a group of children busy all day.

Arts and crafts help pre-school children learn basic skills like drawing, painting, counting and learning colours. Craft projects also teach children fine motor skills, science and critical thinking. Important lessons learned from doing arts and crafts are team work and getting along with peers. Teaching arts and crafts to young children is very valuable.

Sell Arts And Crafts

As an arts and crafts person, you know your way around a jigsaw or a sewing machine, but the Internet may escape you. This is why many arts and craft vendors turn to eBay. However, in many cases, they meet with little or no success. The next step may be a website, but this may just turn out to be something that you just tell your friends to go look at, but never really get any traffic other than that.

This is because even though you have tried to set up a website before, you have had very little success because you have no experience with developing them or managing to the point where it would net you some sales. There are different routes to go, but the costs of hiring a webmaster can be expensive and the free templates that you can get from a hosting company look amateurish. These kinds of templates really don't have the features that you need to sell your handmade items, anyway. So what do you do next if you want to create a successful regional arts and crafts ecommerce site on the Internet?

Free website templates will allow you to design a professional looking flash website where people can buy your arts and crafts year round. These are flash templates that are designed by some of the Internets best web developers and they are available for free or for a low cost. With these flash templates, you can create slide shows of your arts and crafts, and entire catalogs that can be updated as often as you like.

You can add text and customize these flash templates to exactly the way you need them. You can even add short video and audio clips of your work methods, local scenery or music. This creates an entire feel for the region where you live and can generate an interest from people who have never been there.

There are many web development and web hosting companies that have these flash website templates for free or at an affordable rate. There are many templates that are specifically geared towards different types of arts sales. This means that there are hundreds of templates to choose from so that you can find the one that most closely resembles that theme that suits your products. They are also set up so that it is simple to organize your products and easily navigable for your customers.

To use the templates to build a website is really simple. The first step is to download the template and then insert your pictures, video, audio, and text. There is no software to buy and the building process is drag and drop. One click of the publish button and your website will be sent to the search engines after you pick out your domain name. The domain name will cost about $15, but many times the hosting is free. As you can see, website templates have come a long way from the original static ones that were produced for people who wanted an E commerce site, but had no experience with the coding or linking involved with developing one.

It posses an authentic directory of arts & crafts product catalogue, art & crafts product buyers, & sellers, Indian manufacturers & exporters of beautiful range of gifts & crafts deals in different types of assortments like key chains, handicrafts, crystals, paper crafts etc.

Homemade Art and Craft

Whenever any special occasion comes, it also came with the celebration at that time. No celebration is considered complete with party and no party is complete without gift. Gift doesn't mean buying expansive thing and deliver it to the host. A gift indicates the love and care that you have in your heart. If a homemade or self made gift is presented to the person, it seems more valuable.

Gifts that are homemade not only reveal your ability it also indicates your love and affection. Homemade gifts are inexpensive but they are fun to make, also, it is priceless for love and creativity that goes into them. To make homemade crafts you need not any special and expansive things. You can make your gift even with the waste things and with vegetables. Some of the effective methods with the list of items are mentioned below.

Vegetable craft

Vegetable art is a simple and less time consuming. Even children can make different and beautiful items with the help of vegetables. For making crafts you need some vegetables, a piece of cloth and fabric colors. It is your option you can make length or breathe wise slices of capsicum or any vegetable that is chosen by you. You can make beautiful patterns with the help of vegetable.

Take a capsicum and cut in two pieces. Take fabric color and apply the paint on cut edge of capsicum. You can take any color of your choice. Now, make the petals of flower with this by pressing it on the cloth. Take lady finger and cut in length wise apply green color to it for making leaves of petals of flower. You can punch this flower design any side of cloth either in center, middle or side of the cloth.