Any Ideas For "cheap" Crafty Christmas Gifts - Page 2

[LaLa]

Here is another list I had saved from the year before

1. Candles- Make candles and or buy candles and decorate them with dried flowers, using melted parafen wax to make them stick!

2. Create a cookbook with your favorite recipes and recipes you've collected online

3. Cookies, Jams, Breads, etc

4. Jelly, Applesauce, Salsa, Herb Vinegar, Oils

5. Lavender dream pillows

6. Calender with pics of your family and or friends

7. Bath Salts

8. Homemade soaps FUN to make

9. Build a puppet stage and make puppets

10. Build a simple dollhouse

11. Make fleece throws

12. Pillows and blankets for living room

13. Dolls for children are fun to make! Free instructions on sleepingbean.com

14. Basket, stuffed with a strand of white lights inside, put dried flowers and eucalyptus out the top of the basket and a simple fabric bow at top

15. Make Paper, or buy pretty paper and make envelopes, creating a stationary set!

16. Photos in decorated frames make great gifts

17. Brownies or Cookies in a jar! Layered

18. Quillow (quilt that folds into a small pocket and becomes a pillow)

19. Scarves, hats

20. Paint flower pots, give them as gifts with some seeds and a trowel for children

21. Placemats and napkins from cloth

22. Weave a basket!

23. Bead jewelry

24. Buy a wooden rack/tray/decoration from the craft store, and paint it, decorate it, get creative!

25. Take some shells and fill them with wax and candle wicks, viola...candles by the shore!

26. Bath kit or massage kits

27. Liquors

28. Bath Bombs

29. Caligraphy (frame a saying, poem, or song)

30. Personalize a journal. Buy a blank book for $3 at the bookstore and insert old postcards, pictures, sayings, poems, whatever! Make it special!

[LaLa]

I think this is the recipe j&g posted for Kahula last year

Kahula
Kahlua
Ready in 2 to 4 months
Makes about 1 1/2 quarts

2 cups water
1/4 plus 2 Tlb instant coffee (freshly opened jar)
3 1/2 c granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean split
2 3/4 cups vodka
3/4 c brandy
1/4 tsp choc. extract
1 drop red food coloring

heat water in med. saucepan. When hot, add coffee and stir until dissolved. Add sugar and vanilla bean, stirring well to combine. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Immediately reduce heat so that a very low boil is maintained for 1 minute. Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm.
Pour vodka and brandy into afinf container. Add the cooled coffee mixture and the chocolate extract. Srit well. Cap and let age in a cool dark place for 3 weeks. After initial aging, strain liqueur though a cloth lined wire mest strainer over a large bowl. Repeat until desired clarity is reached Stir in food coloring. Bottle cap and let age an additional 1 to 3 months.

[LaLa]

And one final idea...consider trading the crafts you make with other mamas here!
I am doing that with about 10 moms and I anticpate I will have all of my xmas gifts covered through swapping. That way I don't bore my family by giving them the same homemade stuff year after year
:LOL

[jenoline]

craft gifts for boys?

What about something cheap/easy that can be made for boys? I have 5 nephews, ages:11, 9, 5, 5, & 2. These are great ideas for adults, and girls, but I can't think of anything I could make for my nephews. Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Jennifer

PS I love all these ideas...I think I've got all the adults gifts planned now!

[LaLa]

For the two year old boy you could make a montessori style board set for very cheap that teaches how to do buttons, zippers, velcro, snaps etc.

You just cut these things off of old clothing and either sew them together onto a fabric cube, stuffed with poly fill, or tack them onto small boards with furniture tacks. You could paint the backs with numbers, letters etc.

For boys 2-5 I think doll slings are still kind of fun in cool prints!
Or treasure sacks in some print the boys will like with little inexpensive gifts such as coloring books, clay, etc.

You can give a child age 3-7 a homemade clay set with the ingredients needed, instructions, and a tool or two to use with it. Then the child can make their own clay, then play with it!

A dress up / magic box is a decorated box with homemade simple costumes (a cape, a silly hat, glasses etc). You could put together a theme of some sort and give it as a gift

The older boys get harder to make things for...
I'll have to think some more about it!

[J&G's mom]

Yep, that looks like my recipe. Yum, Yum. I have left out the red food coloring the last time or two and didn't really see any difference. I have a whole book of liquor recipes, let me know if there is another type you are interested in and I'll check for the recipe(s).
LaLa, did you make the kahlua? and what did you think? what about some of the cookie/brownie/soup recipes? I think some of those are the same ones I made last year.
p.s. I found I great place to get the bottles online, very inexpensive too. I'll see if I can find the website address for you.

For the boys;
How about buying tees, hats, etc., dye and squirt bottles (from the craft store for the older boys). You could give each 2 colors and then they could all share if they wanted a rainbow design and they could do the simple tye dye method, which just involves spraying colors on a bunched up shirt, then rebunch, then spray. You can find the dye, bottles, instructions at most craft stores. Although, the parents may hate this. It will be a lot of work for them too.

J&G's mom

[lorrielink]

WEEeeee, this thread is turning into a regular martha stewart page, im loving it.

you guys are gonna make me a hit this x-mas, thanks so much for sharing.

J&G's mom,i hope you find that link, also would you mind telling the name of the liqure making book so i could try to find it for myself?

[Lemon Balm]

Not a gift idea, but a wrap idea:

Similar to SueZVudu's. When dd1 was a baby, I put her in a Johnny Jumpup (thingy that hung from the doorway). I had a large roll of brown craft paper & painted one foot red & one green. She stamped her feet on the paper to make Christmas wrap. Everyone loved it and many saved it. I'm sure it was more memorable than the actual gift.

[Lemon Balm]

I thought of something I did cheaply one year... Herbed vinegars (especially if you've grown the herbs). I saved Riesling style bottles (the tall ones). I made labels on pretty, textured paper. I took the herb used in that particular vinegar, covered it with paint and stamped it on the label. Then I wrote whatever was applicable "red wine sage vinegar" etc.. I took a gold pen and made a border for the label then glued it on. I also made sculpy candy cane ornaments and hung them around the neck of the bottle. I was very cheap, very fun & looked great.

[J&G's mom]

Okay the link for the bottles is www.beer-wine.com
Look up bottles on the index page, I tried to go sorta small as to stretch my supply but everyone complained that I needed to use BIG bottles next time so I think the wine size or the one size smaller would be good. They will help you with the cork sizes too. I had ordered the wrong ones and wrote on the order form to just correct it if I had choosen the wrong size and they fixed it for me. Plus, you can find corks at hardware type stores too.

The name of the book is Classic Liqueurs; The art of making and cooking with liqueurs by Cheryl Long and Heather Kibbey. I think that I found it at Powells here in Portland (www.powells.com) but it may have been on amazon or bn.com. If you have problems locating it, I can PM or email some recipes.

Last year this thread got really long and I'm sure it will this year too

I made herb vinegars one year too and they turned out very pretty. The website above has bottles that could work for that too. I also have a few recipes for those if anyone is interested.

Okay, I must go feed my STARVING children now....
J&G's mom

[Jazlyn's mommy]

Thank You for all of the replys, I appreciate them all!!!

[Scout]

Wow... this is a great thread! Thanks for sharing all these great ideas!

Hey LaLa and J&Gs mom,
Thanks so much for the kahlua recipe -- it's exactly what I was looking for! I have a question about the recipe. What is "afinf"?
"... Pour vodka and brandy into afinfe container."

And is the amount of coffee 1/4 Cups plus 2 TBS?

I really want to make this, and I have a tendency to really screw up homemade gifts... I want to be sure I know Exactly what to do!


Thank you!


Scout

[J&G's mom]

I'm not sure which word LaLa was searching for but you can use jars, empty juice bottles, etc. And yes the recipe calls for 1/4 cup plus 2 tbl. instant coffee...don't use the powdered type, use the regular instant coffee.
Good luck, J&G's mom

[Scout]

Thanks so much J&G's mom!
I'm going mix up a couple of batches this weekend!


Scout

[tara]

Last year I made a bunch of bath stuff, and it was ridiculously easy and cheap. I made bath oils, salts, soaps, bombs. The bath bombs were the biggest hit, and they are so simple to make. The soaps went over well, too. The oils I put in pretty bottles that I scavenged from thrift stores and I put dried lavender and rose petals in them to float around and look pretty.

I also made lavender vodka, which was really popular. But, I made it in the summer, and there probably isn't any lavender left to make it with now. But, I'll tell you how anyway.

Take a big jar and stuff it with fresh lavender blossoms. Add 1/4 c sugar and one lemon sliced thinly. Fill the jar with vodka. For two weeks, shake the jar every day. After two weeks, strain and pour into bottles. It's really, really yummy with tonic over ice...

[Kim]

It's that time again...

This year I was thinking of making linen waters. I found an easy recipe online last year. I'm pretty sure all you needed was distilled water, 1/4 cup vodka, and lavendar and rose oils for scent. Package it in a pretty bottle and you've got a gift that retails for like $15 for the price of $3.

Tara,

Do you think it could work with dried lavendar?

[somemama]

Could I please have some recipes for bath salts, soaps, etc? Thanks!!

[JavaJerri]

Could you please share your recipe for the bath bombs? Please?

[tara]

I'm on my way out the door, but I'll post some recipes tomorrow!

[somemama]

Thanks!!