FRANKIE
#23
(May/Jun 2008)
TURNING
THRIFTINESS INTO GIFTINESS
Edited version published:
Frankie #23 (May/Jun 2008)
Recently, we asked some of Frankie’s friends to share their
favourite DIY gift ideas. These ideas might take a bit of time, a dollop
of love, but very little cash. Here are five gift ideas for those occasions
you don’t have much money to offer, but have a lot of love to give.
HOUSEWARMINGS
Benjamin’s Oversized Crossword Puzzles
Housewarmings can be awkward, since they forcefully bring together
disparate, detached and unrelated social cliques. Oversized crossword
puzzles facilitate social interaction by discovering all kinds of hideous
facts about your mutual friends. Unlike board games, its grand scale means
even 50+ inebriated people can participate simultaneously.
Tools:
Graph paper, black pen, nikko, blu-tack.
Instructions:
1. Mass email all friends going to the housewarming for personal, secret,
embarrassing or shocking trivia about the household's occupants.
2. Arrange answers into a crossword grid using graph paper. Black out
the remaining squares.
3. Provide cryptic and loaded clues at the bottom.
4. Go to local print shop and print puzzle out on A0-sized paper.
5. Stick it on the wall, fetch a nikko, and watch people go ape-shit throughout
the night.
Total cost: $15.00
HALLOWEEN
Lesley’s Zombie Cake
Halloween might have never taken off properly in Australia, but
that’s no excuse to avoid this amazing holiday. After all: besides
Easter, there are very few occasions throughout the year to celebrate
the living dead.
Tools:
Sponge-cake mix, plastic human figurines, desiccated coconut, food colouring,
pre-made chocolate icing, chocolate biscuits, bits of cardboard.
Instructions:
1. Prepare sponge-cake well in advance, according to manufacturer’s
instructions. Cool.
2. Create zombies by purchasing plastic human figurines and breaking them.
Use a red permanent marker for blood, and mangle bodies to their constituent
parts using a cloth bag and a rolling pin and/or hammer.
3. Create graves for the zombies by cutting holes into the cake. Keep
graves slightly bigger than each zombie, so you can press the loose cake
back around the zombie to hold it in place.
4. Ice cake using the chocolate icing, putting a little icing around the
zombies where they enter the grave.
5. Create graveyard by pouring coconut into a bowl with plenty of green
food colouring. Sprinkle the green coconut all over the cake, except on
top of the grave. Crush chocolate biscuits, and sprinkle over the tops
of the graves and zombies to create the disturbed ground from which they
have burst.
6. Create tombstones using the small pieces of cardboard. Cut a tombstone
shape with prongs at the bottom, which will assist it in sticking into
the cake.
Total cost: $12.00
DIVORCES / BREAK-UPS
Fiona’s Ex-Partner Piñata
Once the exclusive domain of violent children’s parties
in Latin America, piñatas are also good for any occasions that
require physical or mention tension be exorcised. Create this patented
ex-partner piñata the next time your friend goes through a break-up.
It will allow them to bash the crap out of their ex, without having an
actual restraining order placed against them.
Tools:
Two balloons, rubber cement, newspaper, clag glue, needle, printing paper,
paint, cricket bat, twine, blindfold, chocolate, miniature bottles of
alcohol, painkillers.
Instructions:
1. Using an inkjet printer, print out an unflattering photo of the ex-partner
in question.
2. Blow up one balloon to medium size (the torso), and another balloon
to small size (the head). Glue them together using the rubber cement,
and leave to dry.
3. Harness your high-school art class paper-mache techniques. Dilute the
clag, shred newspaper down to strips, and start slathering the newspaper
over the balloons. Make sure layers are completely dry before attempting
the next. For an easily-breakable piñata, use three layers. For
a tougher one, use six.
4. Once piñata is completely dry, pop the balloon with a needle.
5. Cut a flap into the piñata, and fill the body with chocolate,
alcohol and painkillers. Seal shut with paper-based masking tape.
5. Paint arms, clothes and hair. Carefully glue on the ex’s face
onto the head.
6. Hang piñata from clothesline or ceiling. Blindfold friends,
and proceed to smash open piñata with cricket bat, in turns. Consume
alcohol, chocolate and painkillers.
Total cost: $20+
VALENTINE’S DAY
Barbara’s Rubik’s Cube for Lovers
Chocolate and flowers are the traditional Valentine’s gift.
But chocolates are digested and passed as waste; flowers wilt and die.
Wow. A fitting analogy for your undying affections. However, a personalised
Rubik’s cube—adorned with personal photos, illustrations or
love letters—is a lasting reminder that although your love is complicated
and problematic, there’s always a solution to make it perfect again.
Tools:
Rubik’s Cube, eucalyptus/citrus oil, inkjet printer, adhesive sticker
paper, scissors.
Instructions:
1. Purchase a Rubik’s Cube. If you purchase it brand new, open the
packaging carefully, and you’ll be able to give the gift in its
original casing.
2. Peel off the coloured stickers carefully. This should be easy, but
if you need help, use eucalyptus or citrus oil to dissolve the sticky
residue.
3. Using Photoshop, edit the six images you want to appear on each side
of the Rubik’s Cube. Each individual square is 305 x 305 pixels.
4. Print out the stickers using a good-quality inkjet printer, on peelable
adhesive sticker paper. Cut the squares out carefully.
5. Stick the stickers on the cube carefully, and seal back into original
packaging.
Total cost: $35.00 (for new Rubik’s Cube)
BIRTHDAYS
Benjamin’s
Apocalypse Dinosaur Snowglobe
Who doesn’t love dinosaurs? Who doesn’t love snowglobes?
This craft project consolidates those two enduring loves to create a majestic
diorama of their tragic demise. With the abundance of plastic religious
paraphernalia, it is also easy to turn this into a Virgin Mary or Jesus
snowglobe. Use your imagination.
Tools:
Brown Fimo polymer clay, plastic palm trees, plastic dinosaur figurines,
superglue, red glitter, mortar and pestle, tweezers, baby oil, silicone/aquarium
sealant.
Instructions:
1. Buy a good, clean jar. Proper homeware stores sell clean, unmarked,
spherical jars.
2. Create your dinosaur landscape using the Fimo. Stick the palm trees
and dinosaurs in place, then remove them carefully, so their imprints
remain.
3. Create debris by rolling little snot-shaped nuggets of Fimo.
4. Bake Fimo in oven according to directions.
4. One cooked, superglue all dinosaurs and palm trees back into the Fimo,
and superglue fimo to the jar’s lid.
5. Fill jar with baby oil. Add glitter and Fimo debris. Line sides of
jar with silicone/aquarium sealant. Screw on tight.
Total cost: $25.00
Last
Updated :: 01 May 2008
All Content ©
Benjamin Law 2008