Ideas for easy home made christmas gifts please

[reastie]

We are short of cash this year with me being on maternity leave so I'm hoping to start now making some hand made christmas gifts. Does anyone have any good ideas or links to ideas? I'm imagining making maybe some christmas tree decorations (possibly personalised) for people but don't know where to start. They need to be quite quick and simple to do as I can't spend days on each one but also look good (alot of the more simple ones I find with instructions look a bit ). Any ideas??? Doesn't have to be a christmas tree decoration but I quite like the idea of something hand sewn....

Fab idea, hope for the best, thanks!

if anyone is looking for moulds to make sweets etc I got some today in poundland and in the 99p shop.

I also got a load of craft bits in there too ready to make cards and decorations, they had felt and everything!! I spent £10 but it should be worth it if my stuff doesn't come out looking poo!!!

Wishiwasarestaurantcritic I wouldn't worry about not liking vodka, the various fruit etc vodka's taste nothing like vodka once they've infused for long enough - more like an alcoholic version of whatever you've been infusing!

The reason vodka is used is because it's a fairly 'neutral' alcohol and it allows the flavour of the sloes/damsons/christmas pudding to come through.

I've made many a bottle of sloe gin or blackberry vodka and they always end up tasting like the main ingredient. I think that whisky, brandy, rum etc are probably too strong a flavour to use as a base but someone may come along and correct me.

I want to make some flavoured vodkas this year for the PILs and my brother.

I'm going to make the christmas vodka for pils and I'm thinking strawberry vodka for my brother as I have a fridge full of strawberries at the minute which I'm never going to eat.

My question is how long do they keep?

From what I've read, the strawberry vodka should only take about a week to make, but I'm worried that it won't be much good by christmas. Could I leave the strawberries to soak for longer? What happens if I leave them in for a few weeks?

As for the christmas pud vodka - I know the recipies say to leave the ingredients in for anywhere between a week and two months, but how long will they keep once filtered and bottled?

Another idea for non food items is a cheap cork pin board with a nice fabric stretched over and stapled at the back, you can add some nice pins and a christmas message. You can also add a light padding and criss cross ribbon if you wanted a memo board that doesn't need pins!