I am in need of Christmas gift ideas for my family ... Anyone has any cheap Christmas gift ideas. That kids will love ... or adults will love? They can be personalized ideas or bought. If bought, less that $10. Or what is one cheap gift you or your kids got one Christmas that you still value? The gifts can be for boys and girls 8 years and up and for adults ... Thanks for your help!
I make jewelry a lot...and my daughter helps, me. Usually I make earrings for the women, necklaces for the girls. Yes...boys don't get in on this! I do a lot of baking, too. I give a sample bag of cookies to all my friends, kids' co-op/bible study teachers, MOPS folks, etc. Sometimes I change it up a little. Last year I made a special spiced popcorn and put in cute bags. Hmmmm.... For bigger "family" type gifts I love doing those "gifts in a jar" things where you buy a case of the quart jars and fill with ingredients to make soup, cookies, cakes, etc. A couple years ago we gave each family "Friendship Soup Mix" in a jar, a packet of cornbread and a set of wooden spoons from the dollar store. It worked out to less than $10/family. www.allrecipes.com has A LOT of gift in a jar type ideas. Hope this helps!
Here is something my daughter and I just made for some family members: Peppermint foot scrub: 1 part coarse salt (we used coarse Kosher salt from the supermarket) 1 part olive oil few drops peppermint essential oil The recipe we used called for a "few drops" of the essential oil. We made 3 cups total and found we needed about a teaspoon of the oil to make it really smell good. That still isn't all that expensive, but I thought if we did it again we would see if the craft store had some "soap fragrance" that was peppermint that would be a bit less. We packaged ours in little jelly jars, but you could also recycle containers for it. My son is going to make soap for some family members. We don't make our own from lye, but we just bought a chunk of meltable soap from Michael's and used a coupon, so it was cheap. You can add fragrance and pour into soap molds and get a one-of-a-kind soap. We saw in a book how someone had wrapped it up really fancy using a scrap of cloth and ribbon. With a homemade gift, it is nice to fancy it up a bit with the packaging so it has a "boutique" look. Last year, another gift I did was to make some bon-bons and give them in sets of 8 or 9. If you find a good recipe, they will be way better than the boxes of candy that sell for $10 at Target or Walmart.
I know there are some ladies here that has the directions for the fleece tied blankets and pillows, I myself recieved one as a gift and now all my kids try to steal it on cool nights while we watch movies or TV....... basicly you take 2 pieces of fleece and cut a few inches down and about 1 inch wide.... going all the way around and tie them together. for the pillows you put a pillow form inside.
I don't know what your craft supplyies are like but if you have some paint you can always find wooden shelves and such to paint...... bird houses are like $4.99 and are really cute to decorate up. I get lots of ideas on www.orientaltrading.com you can usually find the same things at craft stores.
http://www.betterbudgeting.com/articles/money/63giftsunder10dollars.htm http://www.blogsmonroe.com/budget/2008/11/budget-friendly-christmas-gift-ideas/ http://familyfinances.suite101.com/article.cfm/christmas_gifts_on_a_budget http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf21044945.tip.html http://frugalliving.about.com/od/christmas/Christmas.htm I hope you can find some ideas here, I'm about ready to head out the door so I havn't checked them out compleetly....... ok or at all. Good luck. share what you find.
stocking stuffers I got almost all of my stocking stuffers at the $ bin at Micheal's..... here ae some things I found: modeling clay (4 colors in a box --- look in kid crafts) 3D puzzles (luckily they had 4 kinds) grow in water animals magnetic "paper dolls" At Target: Hello Kitty Stampers (and they had all kinds of stuff) CARS (the disney movie dry erase boards) other things I saw: stickers, diary magic trick sets small books coloring books
We love games. Every year around the holidays we start playing games together and it goes on for weeks. Most are card games from Walmart and Yatzee is an all time favorite. None of these games were very expensive. I did see a cute idea for girls to make for their friends. You take plain white socks and tie dye them using pennies and rubber bands to make circles on them. My girls thought they were very cute.
My kids both like those magnetic play sets. Basically, it is a little tin that you open up and the inside is painted to look like a doll house, construction site, paper doll, something like that. Then there are little magnet pieces that you use to decorate or change it up. They are less than $10 and I have seen them at Cracker Barrel and Wal-Mart. The ones at Cracker Barrel were nicer, but I haven't seen them there in a while. For small gifts, I have received little kitchen tools and I always appreciate that. Like a garlic press, lemon zester, etc.
For adults (typically grandparents/aunts/uncles) my kids make "gifts in a jar:" muffin mixes, cookie mixes, soup mixes. You can find ideas for these from books (we use the library) and on the internet. It's a little late for now (at least around here...we got lake effect snow yesterday), but I make small jars of jams and jellies from the strawberries, blackberries and raspberries we pick in our garden. Those adults who already have enough "stuff" love these presents from the heart. Carol
WOW! I am so overwhelmed with these ideas! You did not leave out a thing ... From links to fabulous ideas. My family thanks you, in advance... Thanks a lot! :angel:
oh make those wonderful jars up, with everything in it to make cookies but the eggs and milk or whatever, man can't think of the name. for kids, get a paint can from wal mart or paint store, one that wasn't used before, have the children cover the outside with contact paper or wall paper of any design, like if you did basket balls. then inside put things related to basketball... so easy and so much fun...
OK, I'm gonna be the WACKY one, but this was such a hit with the kids AND adult males.... PVC (1/4" I think) marshmellow blow guns. yes guns. The PVC was cut, attached with angle corners, etc. to look like a gun. You load mini-marshmellows in the front end, then blow them on the other end to launch them. (Blow gun). A friend of mine made them last christmas, after seeing them at a craft-fair. (**Craft-fairs are where I get my best ideas!!***) The kids STILL have them and love them, and so does hubbie. Only drawback is the dog loves cleaning up before the kids !! Oh, and hubbie's is a Bazooka one as it's bigger PVC and uses full-sized marshmellows.
I LOVE IT! My neighbor made these for my girls last year and they are awesome! They all had fun shooting marshmallows at each other from across the street. They are tons of fun to take camping too.
I would love more detail on how to make the blankets and a pics if possible. This seems like something the kids can do for their grandparents.
If you're not crafty, you can buy stuff from someone who is. We're going to be giving bars of goat milk soap to a lot of the girls/women on our list. (I don't think the guys will be so thrilled. LOL) http://davesgarden.com/products/market/view/427/
I am so with you on inexpensive stuff for Christmas! For my nieces I hit the target $1 bins in the front and got the cutest purses and put a lip gloss and lotion in each ($3 per gift!). I made mini-baskets for some family members--got the small baskets at the dollar store and filled them with a body scrub, lotion, and pair of fuzzy socks from the target bin ($5 per gift). I went to the half price book store in Houston and found my mom a beautiful Native American book for $3 and put it in a gift bag with some soft slippers I found in an Avon book that were on sale for $4. For my inlaws, we bought a nice framed painting at the dollar store for $5, printed out some photos of our family, popped the glass off the front and placed each photo in the 4 corners and popped it all back together. It is so pretty--a rainbow and sky with the pictures of our family around it. For my nine-year old son, the half price book store also had video games at ridiculous prices--we found one for $5! We ordered him a few toys on e-bay and spent $10 for 2 of them. We raided the dollar store for little things for his stocking and found some books for 35 cents at a thrift store! I love resale shops; I have found the best finds there! Good luck!
tied blanket picture (I think you can buy the same stuff at the fabric store cheaper but these kits are not to bad and they have a bunch of different patterns) http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/b...=Cross Sell-_-Product Detail-_-Product Detail and the pillow http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/b...log&sd=6+Fleece+Winter+Tied+Pillows+Craft+Kit I think each of their kits make 6 for $20 PS: I just read the reviews from Oriental trading and some people that bought the kits for pillows did not rate them well, so you are better off taking the general idea and making your own...... people said that the ones they bought were not cut evenly or that the pattern that had to be centered like a single snow man was off center.
Our Wal-Marts here have one on display in the fabric section, right near the clearance kits to make them
