Homemade pressies anyone?

[geisha]

Would be great to hear ideas about homemade pressies you have made/received. Would really like to have a go this Christmas/autumn birthdays. Particularly interested in gifts for children.

I'm thinking little handbags for 1 year old girls. They really seem to like bags even at that age and it can't be that difficult to make.

have made tutu today, easy peasy and looks great.

For small boys - what about home made playdoh? i seem to remember it just being flour, water and cream of tartar and food colouring. could put in a nice tin and maybe get some nice plastic cookie cutters to go with it - in shapes like cars and trains.

I'm going to make orange pomanders as decorations and possibly give them as gifts aswell.

Get a large orange and stud it with clothes in any pattern you desire. I think it is best to cover the whole thing. Some people then roll the balls in all spice. The cloves will preserve the orange and the whole thing will shrink and harden so you can make them well in advance. Hang them on your tree with ribbon. Smells georgeous!www.organic.org/articles/showarticle/article-161
Look!

There are some great ideas on this thread.

Just bumping to see if there are anymore

great thread!
This year I am doing sock monkeys to go in my DC xmas eve bag...and one for my neice
Alo making lots of truffles/florentines/choc toffee/shortbread for people....ordered some nice cellophane bags and cake boxes from here to put them in.
Oh and for those looking for calendars vistaprint has lots of offers on...I got one free from link in email.. but paid £2.99 for paper upgrade,then £3.00ish for deliver...so £6ish delivered...not bad!...think that without link they are now half price at £4.99....
Would also love to knit somestuff too...but as a beginer knitter that will have to wiat till next xmas....(will be starting in Jan LOL)
Am making up hampers for sis(pamper theme),BIL(curry theme!),and BIL parents (wine and homemade chocs and biscs)

Hmm....think I need to crack on...I have still only made2 1/2 sock monkeys out of 7 LOL

some fab ideas here that I'm going to steal use!

My dd is going to making salt dough ornaments, this year, also will be using small unused white tiles to make personalised coasters, will stick bits of felt on the underside to pervent scratching of furniture.

great ideas. I am going to get ds to decorate some canvas shoppers for the grannies. Thank you for the idea moocowmrs

We wash out and collect empty jars all year.. Mid dec we sterilize the lot and cook masses of cheap gingerbread-cut out with free christmas themed biscuit cutters i had with a mother and baby mag years ago !. We literally make hundreds using basic value ingredients. Kids (all 3 ! ) then have great fun decorating them with icing and lots of other things .Bung half a dozen in each jar. We put a knitting needle through about 60 when baking and thread a ribbon thro the hole. With writing icing write on the childs name and use this as a label. Buy a mass of cheap sparkly material and cut out pretty lids and secure with matching ribbon.With 3 dc 16 13 and 6 they all took 20 or so jars each into school last year for their friends- saved lots of money and went down really well. I suppose if your very artistic they could decorate the jars too !.

We also made jams and chutney for our own frinds and DH just finishing 80 bottles of wine-so we will have lots of homemade goodies this year to give out.

Another top tip of mine is to save all dc drawings all year-makes fabulous wrapping paper ! x

Some great ideas on here We have chutney & home made stout 'maturing' and may invest in some of those lovely bags from cleverbaggers - thanks for that link

And dd will now be getting yet another tutu to add to her collection, thanks to JackBauers link - those are fab

poshsinglemum/anyone else - have you tried pomanders before? How long do they need to 'mature'?

I did hampers last year and made jam and chutney for everybody.

I got all the jars etc on Freecycle for nothing. Kids printed labels, we got the material for the lids in a charity shop.

Bought fruit at the end of the day when it was reduced in price. The kids did all the weighing etc and really enjoyed the idea of making presents.

And we made room sprays and soaps too. (dead easy too)

Everybody who got one said it was the best present and they all want them again this year.

Arse

Bigbadmummy - how do you make room spray s and soap? Does it work out very expensive for 'ingredients'?

Hi mollyroger room spray is dirt cheap though you have to pay something for the little squirty bottles.

1 cup of distilled water (about £3 for 5Litres)
2 tsps of vodka
20 drops of fragrance oil

I did a bergamot one for the men and a vanilla one for the ladies.

You can also do this in larger quantities and use it to squirt over laundry etc.

Kids made the labels

Jamie Oliver's magazine this month also has a "recipe" for putting all the dry ingredients for making biscuits into a jar. You can layer it so it looks great, put a recipe on the label and make it all look pretty.

Nice for a grandma to then make biscuits with the grandchildren?

By general discussion my side of the family this year have decided not to buy expensive presents for the grown ups, as everyone has lots of everything they need and no space for general useless tat.
Fantastic way to go, but as someone who normally does a last minute shop storm for the adults I was a little bit panicky.
I came across amigurumi's though, and though I've never crocheted before in my life have managed to get four done and dusted in the last week (only 6 left to go!).
Cost me £1.75 for the crochet needle, I'd got random wool lying around the house, and takes about 2-4 hrs per little wooly thing.
I'm planning on putting little dangly things on their heads so they can get used as tree decorations.
Still tat, but personalised tat.
(Just google amigurumi, there's loads of sites - probably not suitable for the under three nibbling brigade.)