Gift Ideas

[green_pea]

Just been looking through the threads on here and have been inspired to go all out and make everyone presents this year.
We decided the other day that it'd be nice to make our own paper out of the hoards of junk mail we receive to make our own Christmas cards which can then be decorated, but I've come to a bit of a standstill on what else we can make presents wise.

So far I thought:
Knitted things (socks, hats, scarves, teddies etc)
Rag rugs/tea towels/bath mats
Seeds (I'd be well happy getting seeds, but not sure about other people...)
Jam
Wine
Pickles/chutneys

Any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

(oh also, I'm aware it's a bit soon to start thinking about Christmas but OH is at work for the next 10 weeks, and as the garden pretty much looks after itself recently, I can't bear sitting twiddling my thumbs!)

[chickenchargrill]

Bath stuff
Homemade candles - these are pretty easy to decorate too either with stamps on tissue paper or print out, put the tissue paper on the candle, wrap some wax paper round and use a heat torch thingamajig.
Handbags/tote bags can be made knitted, using old plastic bags, crotched with whatever you like or sewn ones.
Sock monkeys/aliens
Make books with craft ideas/recipes/ whatever your speciality is.
Get some cheap, plain egg cups (or cups, or whatever) and paint them yourself.
Paintings

There are loads more I'm sure.

[niknik]

you could get some glass or ceramic paints, and decorate the jarsfor chutneys/pickles

or get some plain white mugs and or plates and decorate /personalise them.

The paints aren´t cheap , admittedly, but they do go a long way, and for christmas you could probably just use 2 or 3

red ,green, and maybe gold or silver!

I dont have a photo anymore, but one I did a few of as pressies a couple of years ago, was a plate with a holly motif round the edge. It was very popular!

[Nomada]

I love the idea of turning your junk mail into cards!

Things that went down well for me last year were;

xmas chutney with lots of spices, dried fruits and booze in (I used home made elderberry vodka in mine), plum and mulled wine jam, blackberry and apple etc. Also, I did tiny kilner jars of homemade cranberry sauce, I picked the jars up cheaply in b&m. If you can get a cheap bottle of vodka or brandy then fruit liqueurs are really nice, but wine would be cheaper to make I think. I know I'd like to recieve a bottle anyway. I have some blackberry and elderberry wine which will be done this year so a few people might get some of that.

Crochet slipper socks and cowls were good gifts for my friends. You'll get tons of free patterns from ravelery. My favourite pattern was for mary jane slippers and a cowl that can also be a hat when you close the top of the tube with a drawstring.

I had a few xmas cookie cutters so I made a load of ginger biscuits and wrapped them up in greaseproof paper tied with ribbon. that's something you might not be able to do until the week before though.

My friend had just started baking so I bought a cheap cake tin and filled it with small bottles of vanilla and almond extracts, a bag of icing sugar, a bag of flaked almonds, some cookie cutters and some of those sprinkly things you put on top of cakes and she was made up with it. Most of the stuff was quite cheap, the extracts were pennies in b&m (again), the most expensive thing was the tin which was £2.50. Maybe you can do a similar kit based on whatever the persions into.

If you think people might not want seeds then how about putting something like sage cuttings in some nice pots. Tell them it's for sage and onion stuffing! Maybe you could do rosemary or perhaps ivy for the garden.

Can you sew at all? One of the easiest things were nice tote bags. They are really quick to do and you can personalise it a bit, plus there are loads of patterns out there on the internet. As for younger kids (and my mum) I've tried making teddies but I found them to be a big project if you want to do many for Christmas.

[Nomada]

niknik, you genius! I'm sure I've a couple of paints and a ceramic pen somewhere. You've gave me an idea!

Has anyone seen those porcelain travel mugs? I wonder if they come in plain white!

[niknik]

niknik, you genius! I'm sure I've a couple of paints and a ceramic pen somewhere. You've gave me an idea!

Has anyone seen those porcelain travel mugs? I wonder if they come in plain white!

Mugs, glasses, plates, bottles, jars, etc etc....... can all be decorated, either with Christmas theme
or something more personal!

If you use non-permanent paints, you could decorate some plain glasses for your xmas dinner table, and scrub the design off later and re-use glasses.repaint them for easter or a birthday party!

[Nomada]

Bathstuff, that's a good one! Bath salts or body scrubs must be one of the easiest things to make. Bet bath bombs aren't that hard either. Still haven't got round to trying soaps!

[Nomada]

How about candied peel or crytsalised ginger (I made these a few times as a by product of making ginger syrup)?. they're nice dipped in dark chocolate Praline nuts look easy (but that's just from watching people on the Christmas markets make them, they've done it like a million times, I've never tried it yet!). Or maybe other sweets?

[Nomada]

I'd love to make these, but I'm not the best knitter! these are gorgeous!

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter08/PATTbijouterie.php

http://knitty.com/ISSUEff10/PATTcoralie.php


I'm enjoying thinking about Christmas! How about making those lovely microwavable heat things that are filled with lavender and grains?

[green_pea]

Thanks everyone, I'm inspired!!

Just thought of another one whilst I was making patches for the quilt, spotted my hideous leopard print leggings in the fabric box and thought it'd be good to make some leopard hand puppets for the smaller relatives presents!

Yep, I can sew (albeit manually and v. slowly at the moment, having minor sewing machine trouble, grr.) I had to google what a tote bag was though. Do you think little boys would look silly with totes? I could make one for my nephew and embroider dinos onto it...

[green_pea]

Nomada, you seem inspired too, when you going to start making? Sweets! Sweets are a wonderful idea, thank you! My mum would love earrings like those, not sure how I'd manage pulling that off though..

[Nomada]

I don't know. For a small child I don't think it's so much looking silly as what might be easier to carry or more practical. I've looked on google and I can't find much, but then I've only gone the first few pages. Its so geared towardssweing for little girls. Do a bag in a nice solid colour with dinos on. It doesn't have to be a tote, it could be a drawstring bag or maybe a messenger type bag. Even a simple backpack? There's bound to be patterns out there somewhere.

How about Christmas decorations? There should be a ton of ideas here;

http://www.flickr.com/groups/christmas_craftrs/pool/

I'm never going to settle to work, I'll just want to make Christmas stuff!

[Nomada]

http://www.made-by-rae.com/search/label ... 0THE%20BOY

Found a ton of sewing ideas for boys here!

Also couldn't resist sharing this;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shinyhappy ... 613234792/

[green_pea]

Oh wow, forget the little people, I want one for ME!

[niknik]

for decorations..........

use Christmas cookie cutters.......

Make salt dough shapes, seal them with a weak unibond mix, then paint , well get the kids to paint them then seal again before hanging on tree or around the house!

Best make a hole before baking though ( end of drinking straw is ideal, as hole shrinks as bakes