How about blending two great ideas for one neat present? These personalized sewing machines for young girls and teens get a bit of customization for a really unique gift that your daughter, granddaughter or niece will treasure forever.
First, the machine. We’re talking real ones with solid performance – not toys. Those cutesy toy models just don’t last. You give them a machine that breaks down in the first week and they’re probably never going to consider sewing again for years and years and that would be a shame.
Let’s look at two that have the highest ratings online, the Brother XL2600i (read about it here) and the Brother XL2230 (detailed here). Both have tons of online reviews, high marks for performance and quality, and are great starter option. The XL2600i, in particular, is a favorite because it’s one of the few machines under $100 that also has a drop-in bobbin for fuss-free machine set up.
Brother XL 2600i Sewing Machine
Brother XL 2230 Sewing Machine
Second, dress it up –
A sewing machine is a pretty nifty gift – it falls in the category of “the big present”, you know, the one that will trump all the other presents that might be given for that same occasion. But some of them just don’t look all that fun. A simple little trick can fix that and with some planning and creativity you can give a sewing machine that she’ll be bragging about for years to come.
To do this you can use laptop skins, removable contact paper in a variety of colors, or stickers placed on clear, removable contact paper. The stickers can be designs, shapes, flowers, or letters for monogramming.
Laptop skins are cool because:
- They come in LOADS of designs and colors. See a sample here: Laptop Skins
- They’re removable and won’t damage the plastic shell of the sewing machine.
- They can be cut and trimmed to fit various pieces of the machine without affecting performance. Use stencils to trace out curly shapes or flowers, peel off the backing and stick them to the machine.
Obviously you don’t want to cover any part of the sewing machine that has to do with thread delivery, you don’t want to cover the needle plate or dials, and you don’t want to try to fold the skin around too many corners (if it starts to feel like you’re wrapping a present with this stuff then you’ve gone too far!). However, you can do some really cool designs. Here’s a few I put together just using my digital imaging software to see what they’d look like:
I’m not overly crafty so I think most of you could do far better than these examples but I wanted to throw the idea out there. I know when my parents buy presents for the grandkids they like them to be special and that often means personalizing the present in some way. No reason you can’t do the same thing when buying a sewing machine for young girls, right?
OR – don’t want to personalize the sewing machine itself? I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before (it’s now November 18th…) but what about the case? Brother sewing machine cases cost about $25 (see: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002KHBS2?ie=UTF8&tag=sewingmach0b-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0002KHBS2). You can just as easily use laptop skins as skins for the sewing machine case, customize it, and keep your machine untouched.
Maybe this red rose laptop skin and their name in carefully placed stickers is all you need. I’m a sucker for red roses….!!
