Are you still in need of a quick and inexpensive gift to give to neighbors or co-workers or your kid’s teacher? I know exactly what it’s like to be expected to buy a gazillion people gifts and the peer pressure that can occur at workplaces around this time of year and I know just how expensive that gets. It seems these days it’s expected that everybody you ever knew should receive some form of a gift.
And I don’t want to complain too harshly because I really am one of those people who prefers to give than to receive. But sometimes it’s difficult to give as much as I want to. Which is why I’ve long gone toward DIY! You can make cute or unique things for just a tiny bit of money.
Take these hand Santa-tizers for instance… Print off the freebies and slap them on some cheapie hand sanitizers and you’re all set. Now, the small bottles I got Germex brand for $1.00 apiece at Wal-Mart. The bigger bottles I got are store brand for a $1.50 from Dollar General (which is a much better value, I think). But let’s get on with this already.
For this project you will need:
- Free printables for LARGE or small bottles
- bottles of hand sanitizer (or hanitzer as my family tends to call it because that is what my momma accidentally says!)
- paper trimmer
- hot glue
- Goo Gone
Scrape away as much of the labels as you can. Use Goo Gone to remove the sticky that you leave behind. (on a side note, it’s really hard to take a picture of clear things!)
Print your sheets and trim them down to size.
Find the center of the bottle and make sure your belt buckle sits correctly on the front side. Carefully roll the left (shorter) side to the back being sure to keep the front where you want it.
Place a strip of hot glue either on the bottle or the paper, whichever proves easiest for you and then hold down until set.
Wrap around and hot glue the back down also.
And that is all there is to that! The more you do the quicker you get at it and the better they all seem to look.
I don’t know if you can tell, but these print outs use photographs of things for the textures. The white strip down the center is a pic I snapped of fake fur. The belt black leather from a purse! Mine didn’t print out as sharply as I had hoped for but they might do better on a commercial printer or a just a better home printer than mine.
So, think you’ll be whipping up some of these for stockings or quick gifts? There’s plenty of time!
Written by Allison Murray - Visit Website
This is too cute! This would be so prefect for a teacher!
Great idea taking pictures of fur and your purse to create texture! Never would have thought of that!
Karen
Mommy’s Love
mommysloveblog.wordpress.com
Ummm. Santa-tizer? How clever are you! What a cute and unique gift… If I only had time, I would make one for everyone in my mom’s group. Ah, time, where did you go?
It went something like this. Me: “Hey, can you hand me the hanitizer?” Him: “Did you seriously just say Santa-tizer?” :) Total accident but if you Google it tons of people have done it, too!
I just found your easy peasy tutorial. What type of paper did you use for the print out? Thanks for this idea! I will be making these for my neighbors and Mom’s Group.
I actually had mine printed on whatever they normally print on at Kinko’s but just because my printer at home isn’t great. It’s got a sort of glossy texture to it so it doesn’t take on the moisture like crazy. You’ll want something that isn’t really matte because of that. If it feels really smooth, it should work but I’d do a test before giving as gifts!