Giving a Handmade Gift

I know the pickings seem slim in the crafty department, but I can assure you the needles and hooks have been flying in between moving mayhem! I am surrounded by boxes and most of the craft supplies are already buried deep. Thankfully, I remembered to leave out the gift I'm giving a friend. (I really do promise to show you photos of the actual gift I'm about to give, but you'll have to wait until after the weekend...) 

My morning coffee, perched atop the stack of moving boxes.

Usually, with a hand knit or crocheted gift, I like to give the recipient a little leftover yarn, along with a laundry care instruction card. I like to think that my handiwork will last a long time, but the reality is, stuff rips. It's nice to have some yarn that matches in case the recipient needs to mend something. If the gift has buttons, I try to include one or two extras as well.

I often just tie the yarn right onto the card, or put it in a small plastic ziplock bag (like those small ones that hold extra buttons on new clothing). This time, my project used multiple colors, so rather than shoving them all into one little bag to get tangled, I decided to make a little yarn card holder. 

The only supplies needed are paper and a hole punch (I used a standard sized hole punch, but any size or even shape could work.)

First, I found some paper. (This alone was a miracle. I really have packed away most of the craft supplies. In the future, I would definitely use sturdier cardstock -- my paper was pretty flimsy, but it did the job in a pinch.) 

Finding the paper may well be the most difficult task in this project! Here's the rest:

Punch a half hole on each side -- two holes for each strand of yarn.

Wrap the yarn scraps around the indentations. You can either tie them at the back or just loosely fold them over each other. 

Fill up your yarn card. 

I slid the whole card into a narrow ziplock bag (I measured and cut the card smaller than the bag before I wrapped the yarn). 

Not all yarns are created equal and some require special care. I usually just glue the washing instructions from the yarn ball band onto a handmade luggage tag. I sometimes add info on there like whether or not I have pre-washed the item. Even if I don't have time to make a tag (or if I forget...), I'll usually remember to at least give the recipient the actual yarn ball band. 

I tied both the laundry tag and the yarn card together, and then promptly put it with the gift. Hopefully the gift doesn't fall apart, but in case it does, the recipient will be well-equipped to mend. At the very least, the extra yarn could be used for a scrapbooking or other crafty project. 

What extras would you like to receive from a homemade gift?