Jami

The following is a post from contributing writer Jami.

hot-sauce-bar-gift

Sometimes finding appropriate gifts for the men in your life is difficult, and being able to make a gift for men? Well, that’s downright hard. There just aren’t a lot of easy, inexpensive, DIY things men would enjoy.

I’ve got a homemade gift for men idea that meets all these criteria, and it’s just plain fun: a collection of hot sauces presented in a simple, scrap wood box complete with a personalized label. They get to sample various flavors and heat indexes, and you get to come off as brilliant. It’s a win-win.

Homemade Gift for Men: Hot Sauce Bar

Supplies Needed

Scrap wood (our example used about 32 inches of 1×3′s for sides and 30 inches of 1×2′s for bottom)
Hand saw or miter saw
Nails & hammer or nail gun (or even drill and screwdriver for screws)
Sand paper
Two metal handles (preferably reused) and screws to attach
Two upholstery tacks or thumb tacks to coordinate with handles
4-6 varieties of hot sauces
shredded paper (I shredded brown kraft paper in our office shredder- newspaper would be good, too)

Hot Sauce Bar Box

Instructions:

To make the rustic box, cut the scrap 1×3′s into two 10-inch long sides and two 6-inch ends. This is rustic, so you can decide to have your ends longer than the sides, like the example, or shorter and have the sides go the whole way across. It’s up to you.
Nail or screw the shorter end pieces to the sides, being careful to keep everything as square as possible.
Cut bottom piece (s) to fit – either three 1×2′s like the example, or a solid scrap piece of plywood, and attach to sides.
Sand all edges to get rid of splinters and roughness.
Attach handles to each side.
Print out a label (use the example pictured or create your own) on heavy-weight paper and cut to fit one long side.
Attach label with upholstery/thumb tacks.
Fill the box with shredded paper and four to six different hot sauces.

hot sauces for gift

For the sauces, choose varying degrees of hotness and also ethnicity–Asian, Hispanic, Cajun, etc. for a fun variety. Don’t forget to look at places like the dollar store and World Market for different, inexpensive sauces.

We’ve given a few of our relatives this unique gift and they’ve always been a big hit. So much so that they will tell us later all the different things they used the hot sauces for and which they liked best. It’s like a gift that keeps on giving.

What gifts have you found that men enjoy?

Supplies Needed

Old book pages (mine were 5 1/2″ x 8″ and a bit yellowed from age)
Ruler, pencil & scissors
Alphabet stencil (or large enough stickers)
Sharpie or other fine-tipped marker
Hole punch
Jute twine or ribbon

Instructions

Draw a triangle on one book page by finding the center at the bottom of the page with a ruler, marking it, and then using the ruler to draw a line from the center point out towards each top corner of the page. Cut this triangle out (it will be your template).
Lay the first triangle on top of 2 or 3 stacked pages and cut out more triangles. Repeat until you have enough for each letter of your desired banner.
Trace a letter with a pencil on each triangle using a stencil. Repeat for all letters needed.
Use sharpie or other marker to fill in traced letter. If using a permanent marker, be sure to have a scrap piece of paper under the triangle to catch any marker bleed-through.
Punch two holes in the top of each triangle, about an inch in from each corner and about 3/4″ down from the top.
Cut a piece of twine (or ribbon) long enough to hang where you’d like it and thread the triangles onto the twine.
Use push pins or small nails to hold banner in place (if using on a wall temporarily, like a birthday banner). Tape works, as well.

There you have it. Can you think of ways to customize this idea? You can even move beyond book pages by using maps, children’s books, or any number of papers. Sky’s the limit, so have fun!