Is it a secret or is it a way to save money or purely just another way to compete with your friends?
*God I love Lindt Chocolates... Looks like there goes one present I need to re-buy.*
I find doing Secret Santa or Kris Kringle can be a bit of a challenge. Do you do "funny", stick to your budget or get those creative juices flowing and come up with something that you might think is totally amazing, but then the receiver may have different taste and wonder what in the hell it is. I, being a competitive and relatively creative person usually opt for seeing how far I can stretch the budget while also keeping the personality, hobbies, interests of the receiver in mind. This can be hard if they are a work college whom you don't know well.
Start by looking on ebay. They have a special Christmas gift finder, which can give you ideas. Don't forget about the cost of delivery. Might be wise to narrow the search to somewhere local and someone who will let you pick up FOC. My reason for using ebay was to find a surfboard or african drums for under $20. I then kept my eye on a few items over a few days and mentioned that I was looking for a usable surfboard to my work colleges who asked why I kept looking at my phone. Someone jumped in and said he had an old one he would sell for $20. AWESOME!!! "Bring it in", I said. This was Thursday afternoon. I needed to get my act together as party was today (Sunday).
The next day he brought in this old surfboard. It is unusable, so I offered $15, then another college offered to buy the leg rope off me for $5. Double fist pump! That is now a total of $10 spent on a board.
OK, now what do I do with an unusable surfboard???
Well lucky the receiver of this gift is a creative kind of guy, so I thought maybe I can design something, paint, draw, I don't know I have never held a surfboard in my life. To feel the smooth finish on the board I knew it was going to be easy to work with whatever I did.
Step 1 - With the help of a college I scrapped the wax off and gave it a light sand.
Step 2 - What to paint and what sort of paints do I use?
Off to the $2 shop I went to get me some new paints. Acrylics are fine, but you must do a few layers let each one dry before you do the next one. Oh yeah don't forget to get a can of clear acrylic gloss to finish. Look online for inspiration. Type in a key word to google images and see what you can get from pics or colours. My inspiration was the receivers love of surfing. I remembered his password on his video rental card was ripcurl and thought about my tattoo. I found one of Heather Brown's works http://heatherbrownart.blogspot.com/. I love the shapes and colours. Very simple and I just knew straight away that it was something I would love looking at and could put my touches to this style.
Step 3 - After a few drinks with the girls at the pub, I came home to start drawing this piece on the board. OK that was easy.
Step 4 - Wake up hungover. Then get your arse outta bed. Then set up on the balcony for a messy painting morning. Started painting and the paint doesn't blend too well on the board, so mix on your palette first. I thought I would use greens, blues and yellows. I also used silver in those mixes as well.
Step 5 - Let it dry, won't take long, by the time you go shopping for you other christmas gifts, take back a skirt that doesn't fit you cause you have already started on all the Christmas feasts and get back home it will be done.
Step 6 - Get yourself a POSKA pen. So much easier to do the seamless outlines than with ragged paint brushes with bristles going here and there.
Step 7 - Take it outside and spray the shit out of it. I sprayed mine about 3 times, letting it dry each time.
Step 8 - Find a big bloody bow!
Step 9 - Have a drink and put your feet up.
Happy Secret Santa shopping. Be creative, if you can't; pay someone who can :)
