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Store-Bought Handmades: A Christmas Gift Guide

By Barbara Einspruch |

Once upon a time, handmade meant the opposite of store-bought. Usually the handmade gift was a sweater, a tea cozy or an afghan your aunt had worked on all year and lovingly presented to you at Christmastime.

You loved her for it, of course, but somehow the handmade gift never quite looked or fit the way the store-bought things did.

Now, today, there’s been a turn-around. Maybe it’s the nostalgia kick or an emerging sensitivity to a heritage smothered by urban sophistication. Whatever the case, handmade gifts today are highly sought after and often very expensive. Your dear old aunt is selling her afghans and making a bundle and if you want one you’ll have to pay for someone else’s aunt’s handiwork.

Excluding afghans and tea cozies, here’s D’s guide to handmade (though store-bought) gifts in Dallas for Christmas. We think they are fun things to be given for the simple thrill of Christmas giving.

(A) Beautifully crafted toys.

The 13″ racer, $10; tank with swivel turret, $9; bi-wing Sopwith Camel, $20. The Children’s Exchange Gallery, 6615 Snider Plaza, 363-1012. (B) John Barr’s beautiful door wreath, 18″ in diameter, made from dried natural materials, many locally gathered. The oak tree that provides the acorns is a well-kept secret, but the other raw materials -sweetgum balls, locust and mesquite beans, and broom sage – come from the woodlands surrounding Dallas. This size wreath is $35, but larger ones are available to order. John Barr, 528-4836, by appointment. (C) Leaping leapfrogs! Miss Emma makes them in three sizes, $4 for mom, $2.50 for one of the babies and $3 for the sitting version. Frogs by Emma, 357-8925. (D) Three cuddly friends on a parkbench. Little Lulu, $9; Madelaine, $6; Alice in Wonderland, $10. The bench, 26″ long, $16.50. Textured tree, $9, and hand-crocheted stocking, $10 each. Also from the Children’s Exchange.

(A) Completely edible

gingerbread house on its own 11″ by 15″ cardboard lot for the Christmas dinner table. Order it early for $12 50 from the Pagoda Shop, Dallas Garden Center, 428-7476. The 10″ patchwork playpen ball that inadvertently rolled into (A) is $5.50 from the Pagoda Shop as well. (B) All blue jeans are not the same, not if the pockets look like this. Fabulous handworked and hand-embroidered pockets to sew on yourself. Materialistic, in the Quadrangle, has a great collection from $4 to $7. You can also select some nifty hand-embroidered front and back yokes if you are in the cosmic cowboy shirt mode. Materialistic, 2800 Routh St., 651-9425. (C) Judy Glazer, 361-7902, creates fascinating things such as this 14″ angel of bread dough. The angel, sprayed with acrylic or frozen, will last from year to year. She’s priced at $50. (D) New York designer Frank Mclntosh offers this hand-painted velvet pillow, $45, hand-painted placemats, $7, and snappy table settings, napkin rings and even edible goodies in his shop-within-a-shop. Lou Lattimore, Inc., 4320 Lovers Lane.

Local craftsmen presented in the 16th Annual Texas Crafts Exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts have some interesting gift ideas. (A) Michael Obranovich’s hand thrown stoneware pitcher and four cups, $26. Covered Casserole, $22. (B) Shell and sea-life collecting can be fun for the youngsters and here’s a good beginning. Start with a toothy. shark’s jaw, $2 and $7, a plastic-sprayed porcupine fish, $6.95; and fill in with an abaIone shell, $2.50, pearl nautilus, $6, seahorses and a 22-legged starfish at 50c each. Dallas Health and Science Museum Gift Shop, 428-6066. (C) Linda Moseley offers a hand-built stoneware tea pot, 5 1/2″ high, $40; Kim Mosely’s slip cast, hand incised and glazed plates, 8″ in diameter, $25; and their joint effort, a hand thrown vase, 5 1/2″ high, painted and glazed, $40. The Frontroom Craft Gallery, 6617 Snider Plaza, 369-8338. (D) Hand thrown porcelain bowls by Pat LeGrand, $12.50 and $15. (E) Folk Art, 2727 Routh, 742-6495, has a select group of hand-crafted objects from Africa, Central and South America. Among them, a cotton panel from the Ivory Coast, 27″ by 42″, $32.50; a carved turtle from Mali, $5; two ceremonial objects from the Cameroon, a wood drum, 9″ high, $24, and a hand forged metal and wood gong, 15″ high, $35; and a carved Peruvian gourd, $28.

(A) Unique necklaces are in and there’s a good choice available. Baltic amber beads combined with Bedouin silver from Egypt, $55; mummy beads dating from 50-600 B.C., $50; the earrings, $15. Cairo Cotton Belt Trading Co., 521-7338, by appointment. The monkey fetish necklace (upper right) is by Susie Gaines, $38. Haiku, The Quadrangle, 741-6848.

(B) When you’re out looking for the perfect gift, don’t overlook the gift shop at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Anybody would prize this Charles Lutner hand-blown glass paperweight, so attractive it even looks good with paper stacked under it. 3 1/2″ in diameter, $14.

(C) A collection of jewelry dating from the 17th Century through the Art Deco period will catch any lady’s eye. The rings shown include a carved coral head, $128; Chinese cloisonne work, $80; gold with coral beads, $150, and ivory Netsuke mask, $50.

(D) Moving into the late 19th Century, this Art Nouveau pin made of sterling silver and Scotch agate is guaranteed to please at $125. It’s all from Moore-Kolb Antiques, 521-4195, by appointment.

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