Eco-Romance: Green Gifts for Guys

Whether you've been dating for years or just a few days, finding the perfect gift for a boyfriend or a spouse is almost always a challenge. Men are difficult to shop for in general, and it's even harder to find something that expresses your romantic feelings. If you want to show your beau how much you care and give him something that won't cost a fortune or harm the environment, consider making him a personalized gift.

A homemade gift often means more than a store-bought one.

Memories
There's nothing more romantic than a gift that will remind him of you. Decorate a picture frame with a photograph of the two of you, personalizing it with a quote about love or a lyric from your song. If you enjoy crafts, make the frame yourself from recycled materials or use an unusual object to hold the picture, like a wine bottle or a soccer ball. Another item you can make to memorialize your relationship is a memory box. This can be as simple as decorated cardboard, or it can be as intricate as hand-carved wood. Put mementos of your relationship inside, such as ticket stubs from movies you've seen together, playbills from a show you watched, or a matchbook from a restaurant you frequent.

Nature
If your boyfriend is an outdoorsman or an environmentalist, make him something that appeals to his nature-loving side. Purchase a plain terra-cotta pot and decorate the outside with a poem you wrote, a quote from his favorite song, or a photograph of the two of you. Plant a flower or a shrub in it, selecting a specimen that corresponds to his personality. (I.e., don't buy him a delicate African violet if he's never going to remember to water it.)

You could also sew him a grocery bag so he doesn't have to use plastic or make him soap using all-natural ingredients.

Baked Goods
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. To entice his taste-buds and his heart, bake him a cake in his favorite flavor and decorate it with something unique to his personality. For instance, if your boyfriend loves playing basketball, bake the cake in the shape of a basketball or turn the top of the cake into a basketball court. Alternatively, bake a batch of uniquely flavored or specially shaped cookies, delicate macaroons, wispy meringues or a special pie. If he doesn't like baked goods, you could also make him a personalized ice cream flavor, uniquely flavored chocolates, a jar of special cocoa or hand-dipped chocolate fruits.

Useful Objects
Practical birthday gifts are always appreciated, especially when they are handmade. Make him a clock from an object that reflects something about his personality, such as an old record for a music lover or a Dali print for an artist. Make him a personalized keychain if he really likes his car, or a planetarium lamp shade that casts the constellations if he loves astronomy. You could also construct a chessboard and chess pieces from found objects or scrap metal, decorate a reusable coffee cup or a water bottle, sew him a pair of fuzzy slippers or make him a personalized mouse pad.

Personal Time: Upcycling Clocks with Beads

If you're looking to redecorate, don't rush out to buy a new clock. Instead, spruce up an old timepiece with an assortment of colorful beads. Personalized beaded watches and clocks also make intriguing, economical and useful gifts.

Beaded Designs
Draw designs on the face of the clock with glue. You could write over the numbers, make a spiral, draw a wreath of flowers -- whatever suits the room or the recipient. Let the glue dry a bit so it gets a little tacky, then place your selected beads on the glue. For an elegant effect, use different shades of a single color or a mix of black, gray and white; use mismatched multi-colored beads for a funky, hip look.

Face of Beads
Cover the face of the clock with glue and pour tiny beads all over the face of the clock so that it is entirely covered, smearing them out and making sure that the beads don't block the hands of the clock. Put larger, decorative beads in the places where the numbers used to be. Try using all black or all white beads with a tiny bit of color on the face, then putting rich azure, emerald or scarlet beads in place of the numbers to create dramatic contrast.

Melted Beads
Thread plastic beads of your choice on a long, thin piece of wire. Wrap the wire in a spiral, or wrap several lengths of beaded wires in concentric circles. Set the threaded spiral or circles in a pie tin, and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. You can also simply pour a medley of beads into the pie tin, smoothing them out to create an even layer. The beads will melt together, creating a solid clock face. Let it cool for several hours, then pop it off the pie tin. Poke a hole in the center with a nail. Take another clock apart for the hands and time-keeping mechanism, or make your own, and attach them to your new clock face.

Hanging Beads
Thread any beads of your choice on ribbons or wire. Put a larger decorative bead at the bottom, or space out several large beads with smaller, solid colored beads in between. Tie off the ribbon at the bottom or pinch off the wire so that the beads don't fall off. Glue these pieces on your clock at varying intervals and with varying lengths. Make sure that they don't hang in a place where they will interfere with the hands of the clock.

Watch Band

Find an old watch face and thread beads on a piece of ribbon or string to attach to it. 

Other Ideas

Earrings, necklaces, keychains, bookmarks, bottle openers...

'Tis The Season For... Recycling

Finding that perfect gift can be a challenge. You don't want to break the bank, but you want to show how much you care -- and wouldn't it be nice if you didn't contribute to the world's increasing waste? Or buy something that's just going to sit in the back of a closet? 

One excellent solution -- which requires about as much time and effort as navigating the mall -- is to make your own gifts from recycled materials. This is a win-win-win-win situation: not only are you saving money and keeping trash out of the landfill; you're also sending a message to the manufacturers who continue to make that trash, and you get to personalize your gift to make it endearingly special, whether it's for grandma or a teenage boy.

Even if you aren't a do-it-yourselfer-cum-professional-artist, and even if you aren't a hardcore environmentalist out chaining yourself to endangered trees, there are plenty of up-cycled gifts that you can make -- plenty of little ways that you can help save the world.

Ornaments and Wreaths

1. Tear up magazines, junk mail, newspaper or old office papers and dip them in a mixture of flour and water to create ornament shapes out of paper-mache. Globes and stars are common, but you could also make rhomboids, wreaths, cones, or any other shape you like. Paint your shapes with acrylics, and punch a hole in the top for a ribbon to loop through. 

2. Blow up a small balloon to about the size of a fist. Pour clear-drying kids' glue (like Elmer's) and glitter into a cup -- the amount will vary depending on how many ornaments you make, but start with a fourth of a cup. Cut a long piece of string, about two to three feet long. Dip the string into the glue, coating it all over with the glitter mixture. Wrap the glue-dipped string around the balloon in crisscrossing directions, and set it to dry on wax paper. When it's dry, pop the balloon, and attach a little sprig of holly or dried flowers along with a loop of string or ribbon at the top. 

3. Create a wreath with pine cones, either green or brown, by hot-gluing them side-to-side in a circle. Add a second layer of pine cones for depth, or attach some pine boughs, sprigs of mistletoe, dried flowers, found bells or bows made from leftover ribbon. If you want to add color, paint the tips or the whole bodies of the pine cones with acrylics or spray paint; red, gold, silver and white are common colors. 

4. Cut the tops and bottoms off of plastic bottles or aluminum cans. Cut a slit down the side of the leftover cylinder, creating a long rectangle. Roll this rectangle up tightly, and glue the cut side to keep it in this shape. Use these rolled pieces to create a dramatic three-dimensional wreath, gluing the bases of the pieces together in a ring, with the ends sticking out to the side, to the front, to the back, and everywhere in between. Spray paint the pieces or add some sparkle with glitter. 

Accessories

1. Locate some old silverware, either in your cupboards or at a vintage store. You want pieces with interesting decorations on the end. Heat the silverware in a pot of hot water, or with a torch if you have one, and bend it into the shape of a bracelet or a ring with pliers. You will have to cut off the excess metal for a ring. You may want to wrap the ends of the pliers with tape to prevent scratching. If you have a fork, you can also curl the tines into spirals for artistic effect.

2. Glue two tiny circuit boards, extra buttons or typewriter keys to cufflink bases. The keys could be the recipients initials. 

3. Braid or twist a few pieces of scrap wire together. Bend them into a loop to form a ring. Glue a couple of old camera gears, a pretty rock, a fake flower, a broken watch face or other interesting found objects to the top. 

4. Collect some old ties from men you know or a vintage store, and create a clutch or purse by sewing seven to ten of them together lengthwise, one overlapping the next, giving you a long rectangle. Fold one end a third of the way up, and sew the sides together where they meet. This forms the body, or bag, of the purse. Fold the other end down, forming a flap. It should come to about halfway down the sewn-together part. Attach an old button or clasp to secure the flap, and attach another tie as a shoulder strap if you want.

Home Decor

1. Find a few old belts -- they don't have to be the same color -- and cut a piece of cardboard into a shape you like to make a floor mat. Glue the belts to the cardboard, laying them side-by-side and cutting off the ends that stick over the cardboard. Glue a piece of felt or strips of rubber to the bottom to keep it from slipping.

2. Construct a lampshade out of junk food wrappers by folding or rolling them into small pieces and gluing them together to make a cone, then attaching the cone to a wire stand that fits over a lightbulb. 

3. Make a mirror-frame by rolling folded magazine pages and gluing them around the edge of the mirror, both perpendicular and parallel, creating a raised ledge. Fashion magazines are a nice touch.

4. Use old tiles to make coasters by gluing laminated pictures or pieces of an old map on top. Put four sticky round felt pieces -- the kind you generally use under furniture -- in the corners on the bottoms to keep them from slipping or scratching the table.

5. Glue an old doorknob, toy or other found object to the top of a plain bottle stopper to create a fancy wine cork. 

6. Decorate glass bottles to make vases or candle holders.

Still not inspired? What about yogurt container earrings? A necktie wallet? An old t-shirt dog collar, chopstick centerpiece, vintage suitcase pet bed, scrap wood picture frame, reclaimed slate or flattened glass bottle cheese board, old sweater pot holders, broken glass mosaic serving tray or nightlight, wire money clip, glass bottle plant grower, bottle cap toy monsters, soda can tab shoulder bag, computer keyboard keys clutch, scrap metal chess pieces or bracelet charms, bicycle chain bottle opener or mirror frame, old ski wine rack, bike wheel belt, woven seatbelt bag, circuit board mouse pad, tin picture frame or faux flowers...?

Be sure to wrap your gift in an eco-friendly way -- make your own recycled wrapping paper, or use scrap fabric from a craft store.