Homemade Christmas Gifts - Bellville,OH

Have you ever seen those mason jars with all the fixings for home-made brownies (or cookies) in them? They are fun to receive and fun to put together. Families like to get them because you only have to add eggs and butter and they are delicious! You can put a bow around the neck and it's an attractive gift.

Ornaments, wreaths, soup or hot chocolate mixes, cookie mixes, painted plates or cups, special poems or photos framed, photo collages, homemade candy or cookies, jam or apple butter - they LOVE it!

If you are wanting something to do with your kids involvement, there are salt dough ornaments that are fun. It mixes cooking, and art. You mix the ornaments out of flour, salt, oil and water. I can give you the exact recipe if you are interested, but it just isnt handy right now. We also do homemade bubble bath and it also helps the kids learn measuring, mixing colors, and then we color labels and tape on. Very cute idea and easy for kids to help out. Martha Stewarts website has some more grown up ideas. You can also make homemade dog biscuits then put in Christmas treat bag and attach an ingredient card to it. You can almost find anything homemade online I try to come up with a new idea each year. Family Fun also has some really cute kid friendly ideas. I think we are going to make exfolating bar soaps out of a bar of soap and colored wool batting.

I'm not sure who you intend on the recipients to be, but if you have a couple (or someone who is attached), you can put together a "date night in a bag". Get a bottle of sparkling cider/juice/whatever they'll drink that's in your budget, a card game/deck of cards, and make a bit extra of what you're wanting to make for your house during the holidays (brownies, cookies, chex mix, etc.) and package it up in tins, jars, whatever will work and look nice. Package it all up in a gift bag, and let them save it for a night when they want to do something special but don't want to brave the crazy winter weather.

My favorite is a tea made with Tang (orange flavored powdered drink) with some other ingredients added. You can find the recipe on line - there are more than one.

cookies, put on holiday platter with colored celofane, platter and celofane are cheap if bought at Dollar Store, Dollar General, Family Dollar, etc.

on care packages, sometimes I put a holiday ornament on the package instead of a bow... more original and it's useful

go to the park and pick up pine cones, spray them with paint (perhaps silver or gold glitter), glue them together as a centerpiece or wreath; or could drizzle scented oil on them (warm mineral oil and add your own scent such as cinnamon-nutmeg-allspice... or a favorite perfume); add a flare of holiday ribbon, holiday ornament(s), etc. Many of these items can be bought very cheap at Dollar Stores. If you shop at a hobby or fabric store, you might find more ideas for decorating the pine cones. You could make them in any shape... candy cane... spray red and then put silver glitter stripes...

some people like to make their own soap, bath salt and lotions. You can buy the supplies and mix your own scents. For example, buy Epson's bath salt. Pour into a gallon plastic bag. Pour in a few drips of your favorite scented oil or perfume. Shake. Wah-lah cheap bath salts. You can buy a plain lotion or even an extremely strong lotion, mix in a few drops of scented oil or perfume. Buy little decorative bottles from Dollar Store or hobby place. You could even decorate the bottle if you wanted. There are tons of things you can do with soap. You could make a decorative soap with a holiday item inside of it or make the soap for everyday use in a cool holiday design...

instructions to make soap:
http://frugalliving.about.com/b/2008/02/15/make-your-own-...
place to buy supplies:
http://www.thesoapbarn.com/

This isn't exactly homemade but it was a cheap nice gift... When my son was born we were low on funds. I bought a bunch of piture frames from the dollar store and then we did a mini photo shoot (with a digital camera) of my son in Christmas outfits. I went to Walmart and had the pictures printed for like 37 cents each. We ended up with twenty seven gifts for just $1.37 each! You may think dollar store is cheap, but if you pick through there are actually some nice frame options.

Hi K.,

Lots of good ideas already!

Why not make a batch or two of salt dough or homemade playdough for a family with kids?

One gift I really liked was done by my son's first grade class for their families. I was a room parent so I got to help. They made stationery. A few of us moms got a bunch of fabric (you could use paper) and used a special die-cutting machine the school teachers use. This is how they get all those perfectly-shaped construction-paper leaves that go on the bulletin boards in the fall, or the shamrocks in March, etc. You choose whichever shape you want, load that die in the machine, put paper or fabric underneath, throw the lever and the die punches out whatever shape you have chosen. I forget the name of this gadget, but many schools have them. Anyway, we punched a bunch of different fabrics in various shapes (flowers, snowflakes, sailboats, I forget what all else) . We also folded/cut a bunch of brightly colored paper into note-card "blanks", and provided the proper sized envelopes. Each child chose a blank and a fabric cut-out, and glued the fabric to the blank. I think they each made 4. The possibilities were endless! You could ask your children's teachers if the school has such a thing, and if you could use it after school for your own stuff. (I substitute teach and have done this myself at one school--there was no problem). Or you could offer to trade some volunteer help to the teacher for the privilege of using the machine.

Another way to do note cards would be to use decorative rubber stamps; or make the old-fashioned potato stamps we used to make before stamping became such a craze.

Or cut out snowflakes and glue to notecard blanks. A dark background will really make them pop. Or make the snowflakes out of brightly colored paper and put them on white or light card stock for a different effect.

Pine cones can be made into ornaments--spray paint or put glitter on, or glue little bows on; add a piece of ribbon or yarn to hang.

you could make home-made bird feeders from 2-liter pop bottles. I forget how, have never done it, but the instructions looked fairly straightforward.

You could also make mini-bird feeders out of pine cones--spread peanut butter on the cone, then roll it in birdseed, attach string or yarn for hanging. A little messy; can be "re-loaded" with peanut butter and seed.

There should also be a fairly simple way to make a picture mat or frame--maybe buy one from a craft store, then decorate it yourself with stamps, stickers, doodles, foam shapes, wallpaper scraps, shells, ribbon.....you can give the frame with or without a picture in it.

Pomanders--push whole cloves into an orange, either at random or make a pattern. Smells wonderful! You can attach a ribbon to hang it somewhere (ie closet) or wrap in pretty fabric (tie the excess fabric with a ribbon) and use to put in a drawer to scent clothes.

If some of this doesn't make sense, email me and I will try to explain better. Have fun!

K. Z.

I make these and love it and they are cheap and easy. You take a canning jar and lid without the middle piece. You buy the small christmas lights that have like 25. you can buy with plug or some places have the lights with the battery instead. (I like the plug in better) You buy popurri that you like the smell of and place the popurri and the lights in the jar. The lights have to be mixed in with the popurri because it warms it up and makes the popurri smell good. On the lid you have to have the wire to the lights come out. Take some fabric or I use that mesh that people put party favors in and tie a ribbon around it. Hope that you get the idea and good luck to you!!

my babysitter makes gifts with my girls & other kids for their parents and grandparents. I don't know what is in store for this year, although I konw they work on them daily. In the past, we've recieved coffee cups with fingerpainting and ceramic jewelry holders, ceramic christmas tree ornaments. She makes placemats for them with their pictures throughout the year and has them laminated (they love this). Each year it is something new, and bless her heart for being able to do this with 6-8 kids every day. She took ceramic tiles and had teh kids make scenery (bugs and birds). All of the ceramic has to be "heated" (I'm not sure the exact term though).

I buy tins from Michael's for around $1 each. And the Dollar Tree near us has a great collection, too. I have about a dozen recipes that I rotate around and make 3-5 different things each year. This year it's homemade double chocolate fudge, green mint bark and homemade caramel corn. Each of these will make a big batch in under an hour. I'll get enough for around 15 gifts with each batch. My friends and family love it, have already been asking what I'm making, hinting that they want their favorites and often return the tins so I can reuse them each year. All of my children's teachers like it, too.

My kids make ornaments out of foam with their school/preschool pictures in them to hand out to friends, family and their teachers along with the edibles. You can buy a big bucket of picture frame oranaments at Michael's for just a few dollars.

There are all kinds of things you can do.

You can make homemade soaps, bath salts, bubble bath and even child safe soap crayons for little ones. You can find recipes on www.recipezaar.com if you type the words "soap" or "bubble bath" or probably even just "bath" in the search bar.

There are recipes in a jar where you layer the dry ingredients for something like chocolate chip cookies in a Ball canning jar and then put christmas fabric between the seal and the ring to decorate it. I believe these are on recipezaar, too.

One Christmas my mom made potpourri sachets for the, floral for the women and cedar for the men.

My aunt took candy canes and glued them all around a coffee can and planted a christmas cactus in each one and gave them out one year.

For what it's worth, I think these are the best kind of gifts, and I think it's cool to get the kids in on it, too. It's nice to get them thinking about giving and it's nice to be able to sit with them and talk about the people you are making them for while you make them.

L.

If you are looking for something on a budget. My mom last year went to a goodwill or some cheap store like that and found a bunch of these small christmas containers she could bake in. All of these containers made their own little pound cake loaf. you can even wrap up candies or something like that in coffee cups with colored plastic wrap or just take the colored plastic wrap and wrap up some homemade cookies. oh even just finding some cheap little tins and makeing some kind of homemade goody to go inside. hope this helps

What about a candle with cinamin sticks glued around the entirety of the outside. Finish it with a bow and some greenery? Or make your own evergreen centerpieces. You can buy artificial everything at Michael's. Or buy block letters to spell something like JOY. Paint and glue them together! Food in a decorated container is a good one or decorate a wine bottle! Go to Michael's and get inspired! Good luck!
A. V.

If there is someone in your family who likes soaps then I have a really cute idea. I got the idea out of "Family Fun Magazine". It is a great magazine for craft ideas. All you do is get some roving (wool that is not made into yarn yet). You take the roving (I bought mine from a lady in Spring valley who sells alpaca roving, very nice, art teacher -http://www.etsy.com/shop/dbarrstuff) and you wrap it around your favorite bar of soap. Use multiple colors. Then pop wrapped bar into an old pair of hose. Then drop hose covered soap into hot water and pull out and let dry. The fiber will shrink and felt up and make an exfoiliating cover for your bar of soap. here is the site for instructions:
http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/scrubby-soaps-783866/
Merry Christmas,
Livy

I had family who every year picked another members name from a hat. No one told who they got. Then they would make a gift for that family member and they had a whole year to plan it out and craft it. It was always a hit and you only had to supply one gift a year at Christmas. it was a great way to save money and the gifts were really special.