Make:

Give the gift of MAKE this year, and spruce up your gift card while you're at it! For example:

Here's a noise-making card/circuit that I built using a 555 timer IC and some other junk parts I had around the house. The robot "talks" by squeezing the leads of one of the capacitors that make his body. Mr. Frauenfelder's head controls the pitch of the squeeling, the on/off of this sound is "controlled" simply by keeping the potentiometer just ever so lightly plugged in to the breadboard underneath the card so that the sound stops when it gets disconnected, allowing the robot to talk. Also, the trunk of the tree is chocolate.

Thanks to my amigos Torlando Hakes and David Stith for making the paper part of the card! They really brought some cute craft to my squeaky squonk.