30 Days For 30 Dollars: Day 1

If you've been following my blog for a while, you may remember 30 Days For 30 Dollars from around this time last year.  The premise:  30 days of thrifty, crafty projects with a total budget of 30 dollars - yes, around one dollar a day. 

Well, I decided to bring it back this year, with a slightly different focus - gift giving.  With the holidays coming up, who doesn't want to stretch their budget a little further?  So, what kind of gifts can you make on a dollar  budget (that actually look like you spent more than a dollar)?  Well, read on . . .

(Btw, I'm not counting basic crafting supplies such as glues, papers, paints, fabrics, etc. as part of the budget. I figure most crafters are going to have some of that stuff on hand as I do.)

Day 1:  Gifts For Girls

This project began as  . . . 

99 cent elastic hair ties and buttons from my stash

Note:  You  need buttons that have this type of attachment.  And it needs to be big enough to fit the hair tie through.  My pink button was too small so I ended up swapping it out for a different one.

To make these, I followed this tutorial from DreamPatch.  So easy!

But what's a gift without a pretty presentation?

To create the packaging, I traced the original packaging onto a piece of paper board (like a cereal box) and cut out.  Use a glue stick to attach a piece of pretty paper.  Let dry and then trim to size and shape.  Place hair ties on your new packaging.

Total spent:  $1.00 (for 18 hair ties so I could actually make a bunch more of these)