Handmade gifts for best friend

Fold an A4 sheet in half, cover it in paper cut-outs, and write a full one-page letter inside. Pressed flowers need a week between textbook pages, so for a one-evening job, cut things out of old magazines instead. Making it for a boy best friend? Cut out his favourite cricketer, or the band he won't stop playing.

Write a long letter on thin paper, roll it tight, tie it with thread and seal it in a small glass bottle with a cork. Craft shops sell those for around ₹50. Label it "Open on your birthday, not before." And pick a bottle with a neck wide enough to actually slide the scroll back out.

Write 50 memories on coloured paper chits, one per chit ("the day we got locked out of the hostel", "your terrible first haircut"), fold them up and fill a glass jar. A clean jam or pickle jar from home is just as good as a new one. Get three friends to add ten each, so it's not only your memories in there.

Can you draw even a little? Sketch them from a photo using the grid method: rule a light grid over a printout and over your paper, then copy one square at a time. An HB pencil, a 4B pencil and a good eraser are all you need. Give it two sittings, because faces look wrong in the first one and right in the second.

Can't draw at all? Honestly, leave this one alone.

Is your friend leaving for a PG, a new city or a hostel abroad? Give them a small notebook of the dishes you've cooked together, plus one recipe from each of your mothers. Write the recipes the way you'd say them out loud ("add haldi till it looks yellow enough") and doodle on every page. It's just as good for a boy who's never switched on a gas stove in his life.

Make a small crochet flower, a heart or a tiny version of their favourite snack, and finish it on a keyring. Cotton yarn, a hook and a keyring cost about ₹150 together at a craft shop. If you've never crocheted, give it two evenings with a beginner video and make one practice piece first. For a boy best friend, go with dark yarn that won't look silly on bike keys.

Bake a batch of atta-and-jaggery or chocolate chip cookies, pack them in a glass jar, and tie on a tag with the recipe so they can make them again. One batch costs roughly ₹150 to ₹200 in ingredients. Bake them the day before, not a week before, so they're still crisp. Try not to eat half on the way.

Dig out your oldest photo together, the school uniform one or the Class 5 picnic, and recreate it. Same pose, same faces, similar clothes. Print both at a photo studio and put them side by side in two cheap frames from the market. Tip: ask a parent for the original from the album, and photograph it in daylight by a window.

Sew or buy a plain cloth potli and fill it with the little things she always runs out of: a lip balm, a sheet mask, two scrunchies, hair clips and a small candle. Tape a chit on each one saying when to use it ("Sheet mask: the night before your viva"). Buy the bits at your local cosmetics shop, where you can check the shades in person.

Hide six or seven clue chits around their home or hostel, each one a riddle about a shared memory that points to the next spot, with your handmade gift waiting at the end. Use places they'll actually open, like the fridge or the shoe rack. You'll need one evening of planning and an accomplice who lives with them. Keep the whole thing under 20 minutes, or the fun turns into frustration pretty fast.

Ask ten people who love your friend for a handwritten letter by a fixed date. Think school friends, cousins, a favourite teacher, their sibling. Anyone far away can WhatsApp a photo of their letter, and you print it. Collect it all in a shoebox covered in old photos, and set the deadline five days before the birthday, because someone is always late.

Print 20 to 30 small photos at a photo studio, in order from your first picture together to last month, and tape them across their wall in a grid with retro-print washi tape. Washi peels off without taking the paint with it, so it's fine for a hostel or a rented room. Write a date under each photo with a fine marker. Keep the leftover rolls, too, because you'll want them for the scrapbook.

It's a ruled notebook with a make-good-memories theme, but the trick is to fill some of it before you give it. Write the first ten pages yourself: a memory, a dare, a list of things to do together before you both turn 25. Leave the rest blank for them to finish.

Printed photos, ticket stubs, the fest pass, a canteen bill, all stuck in with glue and washi tape, with captions and doodles in between. A blank kraft-paper album costs about ₹150 to ₹250 at a stationery shop, and small prints are a few rupees each at a photo studio. Ask friends to send photos as documents or in HD on WhatsApp, because compressed photos print blurry.

Fair warning: choosing the photos takes way longer than sticking them. Start early.