want craft gift ideas with these materials

[believer]

I wish I were creative enough to just come up with stuff - but alas, I am not.
I want to make simple crafts that would make nice small gifts using the things we already have.
We have:
lots of beads - mostly the plastic pony beads, but quite a few other shapes including plastic and wooden letter beads
clear string for beading and thick black string for beading and plastic lanyard string
round keychain circles
lanyard hooks
lots of perler beads
maps - lots of them
old photographs
some old magazines - like the science ones from the 1950s
some old greeting cards that I could use parts of
mod podge glue stuff
hot glue guns
some paint
a little bit of ribbon
some lace
some paint
I can do calligraphy

I have some small jingly bell
random dice
photo frames
It seems like I have stuff to make some cool things, but I don't know what to make or how.

I tried hot glueing some of the wooden letter beads together to spell the word hope - then I saw that the P and E are upside down on the back of it. I tried painting the back side, but so far the letters show through. I was going to string beads from the top and bottom and put it on a keychain but it looks really bad.

I thought it would be cool to do something with some old photographs, old magazine pics cut out, maybe maps cut up and the greeting cards and lace, but don't know what to do with it.

Any ideas?

[Maleldil's daughter]

Modge podge the maps, magazines, etc to the picture frames. Add beads, lace, etc with hot glue gun. Could leave frame empty or put in calligraphy.
For example, modge podge on strips of maps, accent with a few beads, put inside an inspirational quote about 'the journey.'
Or use magazine images with primary colors, stripes or shapes, or images suggesting childhood play or fun, accent with letter beads and dice, use a quote about having fun or about children.

Make collage with photos/magazines/greeting cards and put in a more minimally decorated frame (like painted with some beads or ribbon).

Make little boxes or origami shapes out of any of your paper products.

Make bracelets, necklaces, keychains with beads/lanyards.

[Aerynne]

You can make Christmas trees out of the beads and beading string.

http://www.artistshelpingchildren.or...tree-ornament/

You can also make any other flat, parallel shape with the same method- a lizard was how I learned that beading technique.

You can also make flower chains http://lc.pandahall.com/articles/197...-for-kids.html

beads are also fun paired with play dough. Even tiny kids can push beads into play dough. You can, for instance, make a play dough Christmas tree with a cookie cutter, then have the kids push beads into it for ornaments.

Put maps with prominent places circled or Christmas cards in photo frames. Small pictures can even be hung as ornaments.

[bec28]

On Pinterest I've seen maps cut out, in hearts or the shape of the state if it's smaller, of the location where someone met, got engaged or married. I think those are pretty cool and would be an interesting thing hung up on the wall.

[ctab]

You could make blessing beads. You string 10 beads so they can be moved up and down the string, and then print up a cute line about using the heads to count the things you are grateful for every day.