Homemade gifts from the heart
A flower, a photo album, a mix CD—sometimes it’s the homemade gift that means the most. Relatively easy-to-do, inexpensive gifts you can make for your friends and family.
NEXT
A wallet made of duct tape
This duct tape wallet can hold money and credit cards. When we decided it would be fun to show L.A. Youth readers how to make a duct tape wallet, I volunteered. I did not expect it to be hard, but I had never used duct tape before. Duct tape is incredibly sticky, and the directions for making a wallet out of it, as provided by 3M/Canada, require that the sticky sides be folded together. This turned out to be difficult.
I folded 20 strips of 11-centimeter duct tape. The tape stuck to my fingers, making it hard to fold it correctly. This process led to the creation of a duct tape mountain, now sitting in a landfill somewhere in Los Angeles County. Eventually, though, I succeeded in folding the six, non-sticky, pieces that I needed. I was infuriated by the time I finished the wallet an hour and a half later. The wallet lives on my bookshelf, destined to gather dust. It is practical, and rather ingenious to make a wallet out of duct tape, but I don't use wallets; I have pockets. If you love origami, you might have fun making a duct tape wallet; otherwise, prepare to be frustrated.
—Seth Shamban, 16, North Hollywood HS
This duct tape wallet can hold money and credit cards. When we decided it would be fun to show L.A. Youth readers how to make a duct tape wallet, I volunteered. I did not expect it to be hard, but I had never used duct tape before. Duct tape is incredibly sticky, and the directions for making a wallet out of it, as provided by 3M/Canada, require that the sticky sides be folded together. This turned out to be difficult.
I folded 20 strips of 11-centimeter duct tape. The tape stuck to my fingers, making it hard to fold it correctly. This process led to the creation of a duct tape mountain, now sitting in a landfill somewhere in Los Angeles County. Eventually, though, I succeeded in folding the six, non-sticky, pieces that I needed. I was infuriated by the time I finished the wallet an hour and a half later. The wallet lives on my bookshelf, destined to gather dust. It is practical, and rather ingenious to make a wallet out of duct tape, but I don't use wallets; I have pockets. If you love origami, you might have fun making a duct tape wallet; otherwise, prepare to be frustrated.
—Seth Shamban, 16, North Hollywood HS
 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
