Collages are a favorite among everyone. Creating a collage based on gathered memories will delight even the most over-gifted friend or family member with a unique gift they will always treasure. Collages can be made by hand on a canvas easily purchased at a craft store or on the computer using programs like Picasa by Google, which is free. Once you make it on the computer, transfer the image to a disk and get it printed out at your local photo store in any size you desire. You can then get it framed. Once you have decided the medium in which you will make the collage, you have to decide what type of collage to make: photos, words, or a mix. For a very special person, you may decide on a collage book where you theme every page differently, either by time frame or event, even changing the type (photos on one page, words on another, for example).
If you have many photos of the gift recipient, especially ones he/she may not have, a photo collage is a great idea. If you want to make it on the computer but many of the images are hard copies, you can scan them into the computer to make the images digital. If you don't have a scanner at home, this is easily done at most packing, printing and shipping stores like Kinko's. You can take the time to individually label each photo, or just do a main theme label in large print such as "Jon and Kate's Wedding, March 2010."
If your recipient is a big fan of words, quotes and phrases, a word collage might be a fun gift idea. Try to find words, phrases and quotes that are meaningful to the person. This is usually more fun if the words are cut from magazines and, therefore, differ from each other in color, size and style. If you have nice handwriting, you may want to add in some words by hand. Accenting the collage with colors and decorations makes it more aesthetically pleasing. Including a favorite poem or paragraph from a book is a good way of centralizing the focus of the collage.
A hodge-podge collage can combine pictures and words from the above collage ideas, either on the same page or in a collage book with each page changing. A "favorites" collage is also a fun, different idea. This could include pictures of the person's favorite books, movies, buildings, cities, places, friends, family or activities, and so on. It is a tribute to who the recipient is at that moment. In years to come, he can look back at the collage and think "I can't believe that was my favorite movie!" or "Wow, I really knew who I was."
Another unique and artsy idea is the create mosaic trivets for the table or as decorations for the wall. These are fairly easy to make by purchasing a ceramic tile square and using broken pieces of colored class or colored tile pieces. With some heavy-duty glue and some grout and tile sealer, the job is pretty simple and easy to personalize. Whether you are artistic or not, mosaics are hard to mess up. You can purchase easy kits at craft stores or check out online sites such as making-mosaics.com, which gives you step-by-step instructions.
If you have any sewing or knitting skills you can easily put those skills to work for a personalized gift idea. Embroider towels with a recipient's initials or knit her a scarf in her favorite color. A crocheted afghan is a timeless gift that will be handed down generation after generation. The sky is truly the limit for anyone with these artistic abilities.