Holiday gift ideas

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petitfleur

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I know it seems early but-
Inspired by DuskeyJewels embrorderd towe Idea (makeing for my mom) I need ideas of nice thrifty yet practical gifts for variouse friends and neighbors. What have been your faveorits over the years?
Here are some ideas I had what would you like or not like to get:
Home made granola
Home made pierogi
Home made quick breads
sigh I am so boreing any ideas any one
I could not think of any clever crafts.
 
Personalized ‘gift baskets’ (and they can be of various sizes).

My best friend had just started a new job, so I made her a little gift basket: coffee mug from the dollar store that I hand-painted with her name, a packet of Raspberry cocoa, a notebook from the dollar store that I personalized with some fabric remnant and some cotton batting to give it a ‘puffy’ look, monogrammed pencils, a cube picture frame that I put pixs of her, kids, me and my kids on, and a scarf I knitted up quickly (4 hours total) with bamboo yarn because it is antibacterial. Everything got done over the weekend in between ‘regular family living’. Of course I always have yarn, fabric, batting and usually bulk stationery supplies on hand so it was even easier but even so.

And that’s just one thing. You can personalize for people based on their hobbies, on favorite sports teams, religious/holiday/holy day themes, ‘secret wishes’, you name it.
 
I found so many ideas for homemade gifts, I had to stop looking 😃

I love homemade quick breads, myself!

Check this out …Scrapbook picturebooks

I’m doing those for my husband’s nieces/nephews, since we have LOADS of pictures of all the children in the family.
 
It’s not a craft idea so this might not be what you’re looking for but we often buy teatowels from not-for-profit organisations that are really good causes. They’re not dear and can normally be mail-ordered from websites - no shopping required! (I prefer to spend my Christmas shopping dollars funding good causes rather than make the department stores richer.)

A printed teatowel might not sound all that exciting as a gift but knowing the purchase funded a good cause makes it special. For example, one year we gave our animal-loving friends “Free the Bears” teatowels in support of an group that rescues bears from bile farms.

There are probably all sorts of charities that sell teatowels and similar, so it might be possible to find some that match friends’ interests.

ETA: you mention whether we might like to receive certain gifts or not … we had a couple of kind people give us trays of home-made sweet iced biscuits for a few years running but there’s only two of us so we had biscuits going stale unless we ate them non-stop and we don’t normally eat sweet things and it was a shame to waste them but a bit silly to eat them on principle. Your list of goodies on the other hand seems to have things most people would eat.
 
Diana,
That website was great it had a bookmark idea that i liked.
Guitar-thanks for the Idea. I havent heard of those tea towels-you must be from the UK!!!The only people I know who say tea towels and biscuits are my in-laws and DH who is fom England.I like that idea, can you give me an example of charities that do that?
The gift basket idea is clever also.I had a neighbor do that for me a few years ago and it was really nice. you can get a lot of nice small things and put them together.
I shy away from food items becuase most people are sick of sweets by the time Christmas comes about.
 
How about hand-made bread? We get lots of Christmas cookies - and I’m diabetic.

It doesn’t even have to be “hand” made if you have a bread machine!

We’re really poor this year, so I think I’ll do that for the grownups, and save our $$ for the kids.

Ruthie
 
I would be willing to taste test 😃
Home made pierogi

Please send to my home address…

btw… I like potato and cheese
 
This year I have been making ornaments, all year round. I will scan one when I have a bit more time.

I went to Hobby Lobby, and they had this really neat embossed felt that had an old-fashioned feel to it. Each sheet cost a remarkable 25 cents.

For each ornament, I folded the sheet in half, and traced a Christmas cookie cutter. If embellsihment was needed, such as eyes and buttons for the gingerbread man, I did those first, on each half. I THEN cut them out.

Putting the backs of each cutout together, I blanket-stitched around the edges with complimentary embroidery thread. I added a thread loop at the top.
 
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