Handmade gift from toddler

[purplefizz26]

We are a bit strapped for cash this year, so will be focusing on treating all the family children rather than adults too.

We do always give everybody a small gift 'from' our toddler age daughter. Usually photo gifts, personalised plaques, that kind of thing, and would like to continue this tradition.

Does anybody have any suggestions for relatively cheap but really lovely gifts that we could hand make and give to grandparents, aunties and uncles? Nothing edible though.

Thanks a lot!

Handprints on hankies with fabric paint.

Salt dough Christmas decorations? We did this last year, bit of paint and glitter and some ribbon, they looked quite cute I think.

A printed calendar with a different photo for each month, or a handprint type picture with a stuck-on mini calendar (nursery do these for us, I quite like them)?

Thanks guys!

A bit like the hankie idea, I'm buying some canvases (cheap from Wilkos or the Works) and DD will make some marks with paint, it looks quite effective.

Homemade bookmark. It's something the GPs use years later. We have done laminated placements. This year, we're making biscuits, coconut and chocolate chip.

Last year we did salt dough hand prints painted to be father Christmas and turned into tree decorations.

Some instant coffee (Douwe Egberts) for example, comes in nice little jars.
My DC painted them, just with poster paint and either use a tea light or a battery tea light

Worked out really well, the light shines nicely through the colours.

I did limit the available colours though to avoid the brown/green turns into otherwise

Large plain coloured paper sheets and then stamp poster paint potato shapes in tree or snowman shapes etc on it makes great wrapping paper too.

We did a hand print on a 75p terracotta plant pot & its lovely!

Also have done £1.99 photo book offer from Snapfish. (Had to wait for a Groupon offer though)

We've also done handprints and squiggley paints on a canvas bag. I bought 10 plain cotton shoppers for £7 on ebay. Everyone loved it!

Brilliant! keep 'em coming!!

Really cheap canvas, stick masking tape hearts or stars on then let toddler loose with paint, glitter, let it dry then peel off tape. They look really pretty

Plain cotton shopping bags (no carrier bags any more!) and fabric paints.

Shamelessly place marking - these are great ideas!

DS and I made Christmas cards last year. I gave him some sheets of green paper and some metallic felt pens. He scribbled all over the paper, then I cut Christmas tree shapes out of them and stuck them on the front of a card blank. The trees looked like they had tinsel and baubles on. Think I then stuck cheapie gold star stickers on the top of every tree. It probably didn't work out cheaper than buying cards if not more expensive but everyone appreciated having something handmade for them.

We got a load of beads etc. and made bracelets for female relatives. We thought it was funny because Granny felt she had to wear it every time she saw my ds.

I just got all excited about the canvas bags thinking I'd go and get some for DSS to make as gifts for grandparents, then remembered all the shops are closed here on Sundays

Add to the pit idea by planting a bulb in it too.

Love the bag idea. Totally stealing that one! Off to eBay now for bags and fabric paint. Great tip about the masking tape too. Might do some potato printing with the kids aswell

Those of you painting flowerpots, what are you going to put in them? I can't think of anything that likes being planted around Christmas time

Mummysparkle hyacinths or poinsettia?

We do a lot of tree decorations. I bought a set of christmas biscuit cutters and they usually feature somehow - we've done cinnamon biscuits & gingerbread but also used them for salt dough decs.

Try Baker Ross/ yellow moon (same company) for small multipacks of crafty things, usually 3-6 items in the set, eg 6 mini stockings DD can decorate for tree decorations and fill with fudge.

You can also go to a pottery painting place to do ceramic tree decorations, coasters, mugs etc. That does really add up though.

We're in same situation so have bought mugs from ikea and with oil based sharpies on one side I've wrote name and funky designs etc and other side little one has done a drawing with love (insert name here) baked them in oven to seal them and they look fab. Especially with the gold/silver/black colours.

We've done thing from the pottery painting places before. Far too expensive for us this year! All of the ladies are getting knitted shawls made by me. Our aim is to get something small for all of the gents, and then give each household something from the DCs.

Another idea would be little trinket pots. We've just covered some little plastic dessert pots like GU, only cheaper in tissue paper and glitter glue for the DCs to give to MIL for her birthday. I'm hoping once they have another layer of PVA over the top they will look quite good. The little cardboard boxes would be great too, they come in lots of shapes too.

I second that Baker Ross is your friend!

Poinsettias might be good. Any ideas how much they are? We planted something up for a Brownies Christmas craft fair one year, but I can't remember what they were!! What about little pots of herbs? Do you think they would go down well, or am I barking up the wrong tree? I can't ask DH, he watered MIL's plastic plants when they were on holiday

www.bakerross.co.uk/mini-porcelain-flower-pots-1?nosto=nosto-product-page

Teeny tiny white flowerpots

These ideas all sound fab! Those of you doing plant pots, what kind of paint do you use? And do you have to do anything to seal it so it doesn't wash off? I'm a crafts novice!

Acrylic paint will cover a flowerpot well. They will last fine indoors and not wash off. If they're going to be outside then a coat of spray varnish would probably protect them a bit better, but they probably won't like frost