Texas Corkboard - RedditGifts project 1 of 4

This summer, my wife and I each signed up for two Reddit Gifts exchanges. We both did the “Arbitrary Day” (basically Christmas in July), and I did the DIY exchange while she did the Broadway exchange. After seeing our matches’ preferences, we quickly decided to use the GF for all four gifts. Each is a separate project, so they will be in different threads.

Project #1
Arbitrary Day - Texas Corkboard


Sierra’s arbitrary day match didn’t have much information to go off of, so she took what we did know (ans what she could find by snooping around the internet) and worked with that. We new they were from Texas, and their anniversary was approaching.

We decided to do a hanging corkboard in the shape of Texas, with stars around the border and twine to hang it by. The back piece is maple ply, and the border piece is a layer of MDF and a layer of maple ply on top. The cork was a sheet from Michael’s, and the whole thing has a grey weathered wood stain.

What do you think? Up next, project 2: DIY exchange

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Tell me more about this reddit gift exchange thing. Very curious.

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Sure. It’s a massive online “secret Santa”. Basically, you sign up on the date they open for a given exchange, fill in your preferences, and on the matching day, you are randomly matched to give to another participant , while someone else is assigned to gift to you. You usually have three weeks to ship to your giftee. It started as a Christmas thing, but now they do several batches of themed exchanges per year, including “arbitrary day”, which is basically just another “Christmas” in July.

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the snarky reply - Let me google that for you, https://lmgtfy.com/?q=reddit+gift+exchange
really snarky reply: https://lmgtfy.com/?q=reddit+gift+exchange&iie=1here’s the link.

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Your snark has the right audience here, I appreciate a good old let me google that for you as much as the next person. I do understand that google is a thing. What I was looking for was the OPs take on it, while I could guess what it was, I’d rather hear what it’s like from someone who’s been there.

I personally equate reddit with the wrong sorts of internet users, but that’s because all the jerks get all the press. Intellectually I know reddit has many corners that are great, but still the stigma lingers. Seems like this little corner won’t attract the sorts of people you read about, so that’s nice.

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I understand where you’re coming from, but this is a generally good group of people. In fact, many of the gifts I’ve recieved over the years have been very nice and thoughtful.

It’s a point system; entering an exchange costs points, which you get back when you successfully complete the exchange (i.e. your giftee posts a thank you note showing they recieved something). You earn additional points for completing exchanges, as well. Then, you can invest more points in a single exchange to be matched with someone who also invests more points, which ideally is a representation of how committed they are to following through. There’s always a chance that your Santa will flake out, but if you report nothing recieved, you’ll have a chance to get rematched. You can even volunteer to be a rematch Santa and take care of the people who get shafted. It’s a great system, and the admins run it very professionally.

How does a new person get any points to start?

You start with a point or two, its been a long time so I don’t remember exactly how many.

Great project! The border piece actually looks like dull metal which is perfect for this design.

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I think this is an awesome project … I like the different materials and the fact that you personalized it. Bet they flipped over it!

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I Love this project. That border is just great.

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That grey weathered stain looks incredible.

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I’m kind of surprised we haven’t done one here…

we did back in the pre-release days…

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It looks like a selection of them are “free” to start:
image

Yeah, some of the smaller exchanges (magnets, postcards, etc) are free. I have 20- something credits saved up, but I only do one or two at a time, so Iusually dump a bunch of credits into them.

doh. I missed that in your comment. :frowning: and agree that the jerks get all the attention.

on a personal note I’ve known about reddits’ (?) gift exchanges for a while. Maybe I need to re-examine the program and “get involved” so I can become less snarky. (I don’t need reddit to that do i?)
Like @Koibito says there are good people on reddit.

js