How do you make your present stand out from the crowd under the tree? Most people are lucky enough to have several presents at Christmas. The first presents to be opened are the most exciting. How do you make sure the presents you give are the first to be opened?

The answer is to make your own gift boxes. Make gift boxes in a range of fun shapes and sizes. Use your own combinations of paper and decorations to make them stand out from the pile around the tree. You can find a whole range of fun and interesting shapes for gift boxes here. What are you waiting for? Get making and have fun.

It's easy to make your own laminated bookmarks. You can use photos you have taken with your digital camera to create the bookmarks. I usually use 4 or 5 photos for each bookmark. I keep to a theme for each bookmark. The photo I have uploaded here shows a set I made using photos of butterflies.

I have written an ebook, fully illustrated with step by step instructions. You can see full details of it here.

I make all of my own cards. Christmas cards, birthday cards, good luck cards - any kind of card. Sometimes I buy blank cards with matching envelopes and sometimes I print onto an A5 sheet of card and simply fold it in half.

If your printer is capable of edge to edge printing you can print the image to cover the whole of the front of the card. If your printer doesn't support edge to edge printing, leave a border all around the picture. If necessary you can trim the card before you fold it.

I always use my own photos taken with my digital camera. For Christmas cards I wait for a cold frosty or snowy day and then rush out to take as many photos as possible, in the hope of getting some that will make good pictures for my Christmas cards.

I have put fuller instructions on how to make cards on my christmas site here