BRIGHT {GIFT} IDEAS

A selection of holiday gifts created right here in our neighborhood

BY RACHEL STONE | PHOTOS BY DANNY FULGENCIO

Some of the magic is lost when you’re flipping through racks to find the perfect Halloween costume and Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” starts playing on the store’s speakers. Christmas is bigger and earlier every year, and the pressure to spend can be overwhelming. But there is a remedy. Avoid the Thanksgiving “door-buster” sales this year and put money directly into our community by shopping local with neighborhood retailers. We take that idea a step further and offer these ideas for gifts that are so Oak Cliff that they’re handmade by our own neighbors, right here in our neighborhood.

Wooden ornaments and jewelry boxes PRICE RANGE $15-$200 WHERE

KC Madeley started producing romantic and whimsical jewelry boxes in her mom’s garage about 10 years ago. Since then, she has moved to Oak Cliff, and her workspace dwindled.

So Madeley recently leased a space at Make and Made. Her specialty is turning found items into beautiful things. Sometimes she reuses old wooden jewelry boxes that she finds in thrift stores or garage sales. But any wooden box will do, including some she’s found in the trash. She sands them, dresses them up with acrylic paints and then decoupages images of flowers or Degas ballerinas, for example. She seals the whole thing before affixing wooden feet, beads, crystals and other notions for detail.

“I make it however you want,” she says.

Sometimes clients bring her trinkets, such as a grandmother’s costume jewelry, that have sentimental meaning but are not useful or valuable. Madeley can use them to adorn the boxes so that the keepsakes are on display in a stylish way.

“No two are ever alike,” she says. “They’re all unique.”

Madeley also creates tree ornaments from sanded wooden blocks. She hangs the blocks with twisted wire and dangles beads and crystals from the bottom. Those, too, can be customized with fam- ily photos, greeting cards, wrapping paper and other paper keepsakes, which she glues to the blocks.

Madeley started making jewelry over 20 years ago, and she sold her creations in a couple of boutiques in Dallas. But now she is all about found objects.

Recently she rescued a pair of old wooden twin beds on the side of the road. Now that she has space at Make and Made, she is planning to give them new life.

“I’m a trash collector,” she says. “I just love it when I find something that inspires me.”

Find the Fluffy Diamond at the Make and Made “sip and shop” Dec. 12, or contact Madeley directly to visit her studio.