Creative Gift Ideas for the Holidays
 

The holidays are quickly approaching and I know many of us are going through some tough times. ITT, share your creative (re: cheap) gift ideas for family and friends.

The past couple Christmases, my family didn't exchange gifts but everyone brought some sort of dish or baked good to our gathering. It was fun reconnecting over good homemade food.

I've attempted to take up crocheting, though that hasn't worked out too well...

The $1 section of Target is amazing for stocking stuffers! Oh, and mixed CDs never get old! And there's always picture frames - get a nice picture and frame it (I know the dollar store has a ton of frames!!).

If you're not time-poor also, make a coupon book, tailored for each person. They can be good for lots of different things, depending on your skills.

-lawn mowing
-general gardening
-being the designated driver
-resume help
-cookies
-general cooking
-babysitting

You get my drift. I gave one to each of my parents one year, and they loved the thought so much, they never used any!

Now, has anyone in financial straits checked out any of the internet bonus sites? Do you get points for your checking, savings, or credit card accounts? Keep those in mind for gifts, too. If you don't know of any, PM me and I can sign you up for at least one - with no cost to you.

Hot chocolate on a stick! bit.ly/3d1h9E
This web site has a ton of fun little crafts you can make cheaply and dress up to look more expensive.

My dad almost always asks for "a hike in the spring where you can see wild flowers" for Christmas. It's so cute!

Hmm...I'll have to think of some other ones. Oh, my family always does a gift exchange thing where everyone brings a gift of about $20-25 then we pick a card to see who goes first. You can also steal a present from someone else if you have a lower number! I got a magic bullet last year, but I'm sure my grandma spent way more than $25 on it! What did I put in the pile?...I think it was a board game like Cranium or something.

That hot chocolate on a stick is too cool!!! Thanks for sharing! I'm definitely going to make those :]

I saw this post and immediately thought of this thread. There are some comments on the bottom about how you could totally make them yourself. So true! They're basically on the go kits (like recruitment disaster kits? haha) with things like deodorant, extra underwear, Shout wipes, etc. I bet it wouldn't be that expensive to put a few together.

Everyone is getting a hand knit item as I bought the yarn and worked on stuff all year, but I also can't justify watching tv without keeping my hands busy. I also conned my boyfriend into taking his car when he comes home with me for Thanksgiving (for insurance purposes it is easier, as I am heavily insured, and his Subaru is a little smaller and gets better gas mileage) so that gives me lots of knitting time between Tri-Cities and the outskirts of Portland because there is no way in hell I'm letting him navigate Portland the day before Thanksgiving.

I also don't have to give my roommate a gift since she's a Jehovah's Witness, but I'll give her a "good luck spring semester gift" when I finish all the stuff for the family.

I'll probably knit something for my cousins again. I mailed them some knit hats recently because I was in a knitting frenzy. Hmm...what now? I'll think about it. Yarn can be so cheap! I could make them a present for $5-10 each. Yesss!

My sister and I were talking about this earlier: I LOVE giving people presents. I just don't like the part where I have to spend money on it...

For a few different occasions, I've made blankets. They're so easy to make, and there are so many options.

Just go to Walmart and get a couple yards of their soft, fluffy fabrics. Get two different ones for each blanket. Make sure the two pieces are the same size, and lay them flat on top of one another. Cut out "tabs" all around the edges (about 1 1/2 inches wide, a few inches long). Then just tie them together (twice should be enough), so you have a quick and easily made blanket with cute ties all around the edges!

I made one for my brother using Patriots material.

I made one for my cousin who was in the Army. They actually have some military (and possibly other themed) material that is made specifically for blankets and the like. The fabric I got had a huge picture of the Army seal on it. For the other side I used blue material.

And the one I made for myself, I keep as an extra blanket for my living room. The room is decorated in red, black and white. One side of the blanket looks like a huge red bandana, and the other side is just black.

One time when I was in there buying fabric, there were a few people trying to help this dad with his two sons, who were going to attempt to make blankets for their younger brother and sister (twins). Both blankets were going to have Winnie the Pooh material on one side, and the other side of one of them was going to be blue, and the other was going to be pink. So cute!

This is a quick/easy/cheap one for all those "people" that you need to give a little something to but it doesn't have to be really big. Office Depot sells self laminating bag tags. If you have any kind of printing program that will print business card size, that's the perfect size for these bag tags. You can put anything you want for the graphic. I made about 40 of them before one convention with a squirrel picture on one side and our convention logo on the other and gave them to everybody I work with regularly within our volunteer services team. I bought actual business cards to print those on and printed both sides, but you could also print them on regular paper. The bag tags average around $1 each. You could make people bag tags with pics of family members, funny lol cat pics, pics of their hobbies, find cute sayings on the interwebz.. whatever! You don't have to be exceptionally gifted in crafts or have a skill like knitting and they don't take much time. If you have hockey fans in your life, you could make it a bag tag for their hockey bag and include their name and address too. Lots of options, personalized, mass produced.. however you want to do it!

http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...-Luggage-Tags/
They've gone up in price a little. $6.79 for five of them.


ETA: I think I might make calendars for my aunts this year, with old family pictures I've found. I have a good photo printer. Perhaps I'll even take some of these old pictures from my mom's stuff and scan them, print them and frame them.

My mom made a calendar for my grandmother last year. For each family member's birthday month, she used a baby picture. It was a big hit and was obvious it meant a lot to her.

One pledge class did this for their big sisters and presented them the night before initiation (we always had a sleepover). It was a huge surprise and really cool! IIRC, they were light blue fleece on one side and dark blue on the other in true Kappa form. They were also monogramed. It was so great that they were all personalized and they looked fairly easy to make (although I'm sure the Type A in me would complicate matters). It was a really cool gift. Definitely a good idea!

I infused vodka one year for several of my relatives. There's a site called Infusions of Grandeur that makes it really simple, and you can start with the cheap stuff :-)

My favorite thing to do is make picture frames! I'll print out a collage or a single picture, then put it in a plain frame that I decorate with whatever crap I find at Michael's. :D

Sorry that the photos are so big! I'm not sure how to resize them.

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...cecex3/013.jpg
A frame for my aunt with a collage of pictures of me and my sister.

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...cecex3/012.jpg
A frame for my sister with pictures of the two of us.

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...cecex3/011.jpg
My dad's father's day present.

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...cecex3/010.jpg
One of my favorites! A mother's day present for my mom with pictures from our spring break vacation. The frame is decorated with shells from the beach there.

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...cecex3/009.jpg
For my grandma, featuring 3 generations!

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/...cecex3/008.jpg
I made 12 of these for my softball team, all customized. This one is mine.

Again, I apologize for the huge pictures, but I just think that frames are a perfect present! I usually spend around $10 on them.