Make a faux product description sheet
Add a little bit of obscurity to your self-made christmas present. A fake Chinese setup guide sheet might have your friend confused for a moment, not knowing if the present actually is self-made or just of really crappy (or excellent!) Chinese quality.
Illustrations
You can easily create line-art illustrations by taking a photo and then using the edge detect tool on it. It may be necessary to remove some noise with the eraser tool.
![A photo of a screw converted to line-art by using the sobel edge detector in Gimp.](lineart-medium.jpg)
For editing the description sheet, Inkscape is a great tool. You can convert the bitmap to a vector image by selecting Path → Trace bitmap..., so it will scale up/down better.
Text
Passing the description text through Google translate gives it authentic technical writing tone. It is how many of the real product manuals seem to be made, too.
![Step-by-step guide, à la Google translate.](text.png)
You can make a few language versions of the text to fill the sheet.
Layout
Typical product sheets are laid out in a square pattern, with the text underneath each illustration. Putting a random identifier code in the corner adds a lot of credibility to the hack.
![Completed product sheet.](layout-medium.png)
Final touches
Remember to pack the present neatly, just like it came from a store. Use some left-over twist ties to hold cables, and make everything fit exactly in the box.
![Gift in a box.](complete-medium.jpg)
– Petteri Aimonen on 22.12.2010