presentation
A homemade gift is shoved in a box with no afterthought to how it's presented. But a hand-crafted gift is "finished" with a nice label, a cute wrapper or nice tie/ribbon, and it might just look like something you'd pick up at a craft fair. At least that's my definition.
Presentation indicates the time, love and thought put into the gift.
As I'm finishing making something, I start to plan in my head how I'll put the final touches on the gift. how I'll package it, will I put a label on it or just a nice ribbon, what kind of ribbon do I have on hand to use, or will I need to "make" my own ribbon -- those kinds of plans.
Remember the dish cloths for my step-mom? Here, they are, finished. I made a set of 3 dish cloths to go with other items, for her. I could have put the 3 into a gift box, maybe with tissue paper. And that would have looked okay, not bad, but okay.
Or, I could take just a few minutes and "finish" the gift, with a nice presentation.
I didn't have a ribbon I wanted to use, so I made my own.
Yes, you can make ribbon!
I used a 3-inch strip of fabric, long enough to wrap around the bundle of wash cloths. I sewed the fabric scrap into a long tube, turn it right side out, and pressed smooth. After tying this new ribbon around the bundle of cloths, I clipped the ends to length, and tuck the raw edges into the tube, finger-pressing the edges nicely. Took all of 5 minutes to make, but it really adds to the presentation of the gift.
