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Gift Wrap Ideas: Home Made Christmas Crackers

Christmas crackers purchased from a shop are mostly over-priced and often they contain poor quality gifts that might have a five minute novelty element to them, but are mostly discarded and rapidly forgotten. How much better it would be if you chose a special Christmas gift for each of your guests so that when they pulled their cracker they found something special? Give them a present that they would be happy to keep and which would remind them of that occasion well into the future.

Doing this is not at all difficult, and making your own Christmas crackers can be a lot of fun. Although you do need to expend a little effort, certainly this will be very much appreciated by your gusts.

First you need to choose a small gift for each guest. Depending on your budget, this can range from something very simple to something quite exotic. You should of course ensure that they will fit inside the centre of the cracker and are not easily damaged.

To make the crackers you need some lightweight wrapping paper cut to about 30cm by 18cm; light weight card cut to 6cm by 18cm for the ends; snappers (which can be bought from novelty shops); paper hats (why not make your own?); cardboard tubes 5cm diameter by 10cm length and a glue stick.

With the tube in the centre, roll the paper round the tube keeping both ends even. With the glue stick, stick the two side of the paper tube together. Roll the light card strips and place them in the ends of the paper tube, then release them and stick them in place with the glue stick. Insert the snapper then crimp in the paper between the central tube and one of the end stiffeners so that it grips the snapper and tie tightly with ribbon. Insert the gift, the hat and possibly a personal message from the other end, then crimp and ribbon tie as before.

You may wish to add additional decorations and a name tag or leave the cracker as it is. These home made crackers will be so much better than any shop bought ones and your guests will appreciate both your efforts and the gift.

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