Ideas for lovely hand-made Christmas gifts

[saltyseadog]

I hope I'm not treading on Fellatio's toes by posting this - but I really want to get some ideas for making Christmas gifts this year and I don't have the time to trawl through the entire poncetastic thread :o.

What will you be making this year?

We did hand print cards, but made santa faces. White hand print, pink felt face and red felt hat, all on black card. We have also done 2 yellow hand prints for angels wings and a doily (sp) for the body, pink felt head on black card.

Last year I bought some cheap cake boxes off ebay and the kids covered them with shredded Chrimbo paper, then we made sweets. The DrOetker website have some nice recipes. The other thing we did was decorate Poundland picture frames with tissue paper in a rumpled type fashion, then painted them silver. A lovely picture of the kids inside and voila.

We have also done the hand print plant pots thing. It's worth remembering to varnish the inside of the pot though. I didn't and the moisture pushed the paint off the front.

Last, but not least I cheat and buy one cheap square uniced Chrimbo cake. Cut it into quarters then ice each quarter. The kids then do their worst with hand made icing penguins and trees and we wrap them in celophane with a nice bow. Always a nice present and really appreiciated.

Ginger I will look at your brooches - if I can do them they must be simple...

verybusyspider I was thinking about chutneys. Got a great nuts recipe from the Guardian last year, tried the violet posy chocs over the weekend and thought maybe I could do some presents that were three little foodstuffs. Any chutneys you can suggest...?

I am excited at the thought of doing stuff - but know my own limitations...!