Christmas Present Ideas.....and.....go!

[Justin]

Hi Kreg friends and Merry Christmas....wait, it's May?  Ok, I take that back!  

I was thinking this year, in the spirit of giving, I would make Christmas gifts for my closest (luckiest) family members (IE mom and dad, mother-in-law and father-in-law, niece, brother etc).

I am looking for neat, fun, simple, complex or just plain cool ideas!  Maybe this will spark someone else to do the same thing!  

[Allen Raushel]

One thing that has worked really well in my family is a themed Christmas. It started off with "Hand Crafted Christmas" where all presents needed to be made by hand. My gift was a success! I made a wooded outdoor cooler for my brother-in-law. I started off with 1x6 cedar and Kreg'd a box large enough to fit a large RubberMaid Roughneck tote inside. I set the tote inside the box and filled the open spaces with Great Stuff expanding foam.  I made a face plate using butt joints to hide the foam and the rim of the RubberMaid tote. Add a drainage tube in the back of the cooler and a top with some hinges and you are set. To add an extra kick, I painted his favorite beer logo on the top of the cooler. The down side is, we had to wait until summer to test it out...the cooler held ice for an entire day in 97 degree heat.

It was such a success, the theme last year was a "Kreg Khristmas" (please excuse the cheesiness of my Christmas themes).

 

Hope this helps.

[Justin]

Thanks Allen!  Went to the local sports store and Walmart to price some coolers.  Do you have any pictures of the cooler you made so I can get some ideas for what I want to build?

[Allen Raushel]

Here was version 1.0 of the cooler. This one was made with deck boards so I could hide it into the design of my deck. The face plate hides the expanding foam that surrounds the Rubber Maid tote. You can add your own design or flare to a cooler that is used in a more traditional manner. Being version 1.0 I noticed some faults with the assembly of the cooler. The later versions had a cleaner look to them.