Small gifts

This is my very first post ever, so I hope you will have patience with me as I learn how to do this.

I am joining Plain and Joyful Living's Handmade Holiday - 2011.  I am happy to be able to join in the fun.

I wanted to come up with a little game that I could include in each of my boys' stockings this year.  Something that they could use on their own, or play together.  I finally decided on the game "Shut the Box".

I cut a scrap piece of oak from our kitchen renovation into little "tiles" using a chop saw.  Then I sanded down the edges one by one.  I used a wood burning tool (one I had not picked up since childhood) to burn the markings into the tiles.  This took a lot longer than I thought...I think maybe my tool is too old.  I was quite pleased with how this turned out for my older child (12) but I didn't like it for the younger (9) so I sanded down some more tiles and used a marker to add the numbers to his.

I think he will like this one much better.  If I were to do this again, I think I would paint the numbers on instead.  The nice thing is I still have time to do another set if I decide to.

Each set has enough tiles to play a regular game with nine tiles, a game with twelve tiles, and another set of nine for "Double Shut the Box."  I made a small pouch using some leftover brown faux suede.

This is how it will be packaged up.  The tag is a slice from a fallen branch with the initials drawn on.  I will probably actually redo the tag with a nice fancy letter painted on.  I am hoping to do tags like this for all of the gifts this year.  I still have to print up a set of instructions, but as they are readily available on the internet, that shouldn't be too complicated.  Then I can add variations more suited to each child.