ISO Christmas Gift ideas

[tbs727]

With DH going back to school this year our budget is going to be stretched to the max. I am not going to be able to put back much money for Christmas gifts. I'll probably be able to spend around $5 per person for each person on my list. I need some new ideas for thoughtful gifts that fit my budget.
Here are my assets:

*I know how to sew and have a sewing machine.
*I know how to crochet, but haven't tried crocheting from a pattern. (blankets are out, I made some for Christmas a couple years ago)
*I can cook from a recipe.

Hmmm... looking at it like this, doesn't look like I have much to offer, can anyone help me?

[PrairieRose]

Tiffany if you have women on your list that love doillies there are some pretty simple ones you can make without too much pattern knowledge. I got a lovely doillie a few years ago for a Xmas gift and it was my fav. gift that year.

For the women on your list, what about whipping up small, jewelry bags (travel type). I'm always looking for something useful to throw my jewelry in on trips. You've seen the type with drawstrings, right? Those would be easy to make.

Gift baskets with a theme, items bought on clearance to go along with the theme are always a hit. Do you have a Walgreens or CVS near you? Maybe you could furnish those with FAR items.

Right now I'm watching the Bealls' 80% off clearance items for gifts for my girls. They always have LOTS of jewelry items for $1.30 or so. The problem is my girls don't like big jewelry so I have to get really lucky which I do sometimes. The guys are tougher to buy for.

Just a couple of ideas there...I'll try to think of more.

[Cricket1]

A few years ago, I bought a beautiful pottery jar with a cork lid on it. I typed up 365 wonderful things about my sister and various memories I had of us growing upand gave it to her for Christmas. I gave her instructions to take one everyday for the whole year. SHE LOVED IT!!! She called me so many times that year laughing (and sometimes crying). It was a wonderful sentimental gift.

You also could do this with a plain old mason jar.

[Early Bird]

Take a look at this blog: http://gloriana.wordpress.com/2006/0...subscriptions/

and her solution: cheap magazine subscriptions. I am following her advice.

Here's another one ... one of the other bloggers on Works for Me Wednesday (http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/sh...day/index.html)
says she gets cheap magazine subscriptions through ebay. I haven't found her link yet, but I have found some excellent deals on mags on ebay.

[slowtypinwoman]

Could you give us a better idea of who you have to buy for? I collected old Christmas mugs ( they seem to multiply in my cupboard) and put them aside.
I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a bunch of candle making supplies when they were 1/3 off. Alex and I will make candles for people as gifts this year. The whole thing should make at least 20 candles. I estimate this cost at about $3 a candle, if that. All the supples cost under $20.
Mending coupons would be a great gift for many. I can mend but I hate to do it.
ok here is my altime favorite gift that people like to get from me. It is somewhat more to make but is loved by all.

Spiced nuts.
I use pecans but almonds and walnuts are good as well.
Usually after X-mas they have all the baking supplies marked down. I grab whatever pecans are left and throw them in the freezer. I know this doesn't help much now but you can usually get pecans pretty cheaply at Aldi's. I'll try to think of some of the other things I have put in my gift baskets.

[tervsforme]

I'm kind of in the same boat this year. I'm going to make Christmas table runners for gifts this year. I got fabric after Christmas last year really cheap and I'm just going to make some 9 patch blocks with borders, etc.

Another idea is to buy some of the larger metal cookie cutters, you could then make fudge and put it in the cookie cutter and give that as a gift. I've done that for work gifts before. Just put the cookie cutter on a baking sheet til it hardens. People like it, then they have a cookie cutter for themselves. It seems a little nicer than just putting some fudge in a box.

I've also started looking for stuff all year round and making a gift closet. It really helps in a pinch.

[sunshine]

Bake a loaf of yeast bread-- sew up a pretty little fabric gift bag, wrap bread in Saran wrap, put in bag, and attach this poem:

* Bread *

Just a humble loaf of bread,
But 'twas once a bowl of paste,
Which, if I left in that condition
Would have surely gone to waste.

But, when kneaded, it was changed
Into something good to eat.
By some kind and loving hands
And an interval of heat.

We, like that loaf of bread,
Must be "needed" to become
What the Lord desires of us
Ere we return back home.

But we cannot "Need ourselves"
We must all serve one another
With kind and loving hands,
Just like our elder Brother,

So that when we are subjected
To that interval of heat,
We'll be like the loaf of bread;
Warm and smooth, and smelling sweet.
- unknown

[sunshine]

Purchase inexpensive kitchen towels, and attach this:

The Ordinary Towel
At first glance, one looks at a kitchen towel and thinks, "Wow, a towel... I needed a new one. The old ones are getting stained and worn." But have we ever stopped to think that for years, even thousands of years, the towel has not just been used in the kitchen, but for a variety of reasons? Take example the mother who wipes the tears of a child to soothe the physical and emotional hurt, the physician who binds the wound of a bleeding patient, the woman in her home, wiping her hands as she moves from task to task, the weary traveler who wipes his sweated brow. Some other examples would be the manager of a boxer who "throws in the towel" to save the life of his protégé or the young man wiping the grease off his hands as he fixes his old jalopy. Notwithstanding all of the above examples, perhaps the most significant use of the towel was about two thousand years ago when our loving Brother took an ordinary towel in his hands and dried the feet of the disciples only hours before his crucifixion. Sure, the towel is a handy item with a myriad of uses, but it also has deep symbolic meaning when seen in the hands of the Savior doing a work of kindness for His fellow men. So take this towel, knowing it is given with love, and do works of goodness with it, as the Savior worked goodness with His so many years ago. With love,

[babetteq]

You can make bathsalts very inexpensively. Epsom salts, a little bit of food colouring and a couple drops of essential oil. Put into a little spice jar from the dollar store (there are always cool little jars there)
One year I made a zillion snowflakes, crocheted. I got the crochet cotton from the thrift store, but it's almost as cheap to buy it at walmart or some other cheezy store like that.

Make a SHORT list of people you will give 'significant' gifts too, the rest get little jars of bathsalts and a snowflake, or a tray of cookies topped with a snowflake.

coupons for favours..... a night over for dinner, a foot rub, a pair of slippers, help with weeding..... tell them they have to use it up before next christmas.

food in jars is pretty cheap too. Mason jars from the thrift store with cute little fabric lids (hem a square of fabric, or cut it with pinking shears and glue onto the snap lid... then put the ring top around it. There are lots of ways of dressing up a top).... but you can make soup mixes, they are pretty if you layer the beans and spices, you can make instant beverage mixes... there are lots of sites with recipes. google "gifts in a jar"

Crochet everyone a new hat and scarf. Use good yarn from old sweaters. You can find beautiful yarn disguised as sweaters at the thrift store!

Make up a recipe book of some of your favourite recipes. Print it on nice paper and make a personalized cover for it...... modgepodge brown paper bag in scraps then twist lengths of bag for designs and modgepodge again, or crochet a little lacy cover and startch the heck out of it, or draw, quilt... you name it. Bind it either by printing it out on cardstock and punching a hole inthe corner where you can put a ring, or 3 hole punch it and bind it with ribbon, yarn..... be creative....

Help out a day in the food bank or soup kitchen or womens shelter. "in honour of the true meaning of christmas, this years gift to you, is for me to work 80 hours this year in the local food bank" (you can phrase it however).

Our family has been poor so often that this is what christmas presents look like in our house.

good luck and have FUN!!!!!
babs

[autumnlynn]

Tiffany,

I think the ideas above are great. Don't sell yourself short. You have plenty to offer. You are concerned about others in August while most people haven't given Christmas a thought. It is easy to buy a gift in a store, but you are giving from the heart. That's plenty to offer in my book.

[tbs727]

Thanks ladies, there are some really great ideas on here! Thanks, too, for the kind words.

[guest32]

Okay...here's my favorite gift idea. Have you seen the marble magnets? These are super easy, cheap, fast, and everybody raves about them! Supplies needed:
Flat clear marbles (not the shimmery ones)
magazines, catalogs, scrapbooking paper, etc...
scissors
Clear silicone sealant/glue (can be found in housewares dept.)
Small round magnets (multi packs are cheaper. I get mine with a 40% Micheals coupon)

Now, lay out your little flat marbles and start going through magazines, pictures, etc, putting the marbles over the pictures to see how they look. Small flowers, words, etc. work well. Just trace around the marble, cut out and glue to the back of the marble. Let dry and then add the little magnet. It only takes a tiny bit of this glue, it dries clear...I use a toothpick to smear it around. You can do a set of theme magnets for an indiviual personality or interest. Eight of these fit into an Altoids tin Everyone I have given these to has loved them! Also good to add to theme baskets, or for magnet boards in a teens' room. Great kids craft!

[guest32]

Samples...

[Goodwin17]

Very cute magnets!!! I love them. I'm definitely going to do that. I can even do those! Thanks so much.

[sunshine]

~ FLOWER POT GIFT ~

Here's a little pot
in which to plant a flower
For now, enjoy the candy
(I hope it's not too sour)

When the candy's gone
put some soil in the pot.
Then you add some water
be careful, not a lot!

Put a plant into the soil
or some seeds, just 2 or 3
And when you look this way,
you'll always think of me!

Paint a small flower crock, fill it with sour candy. Anchor a plant poke
with a pkg of seeds (Forget-Me-Nots or Daisies, etc) and attach the above
poem. Tie a pretty wire-edged ribbon or sweet country-type raffia bow
around the pot.