A handmade christmas - Is 25 gifts posible?

Butterfly_Brain

Cazza wrote: »

I've been thinking about trying to do a homemade Christmas this year too! Just wondered what ideas people had for male relatives? I find female relatives so much easier to get ideas for, but I have no ideas for my male relatives! I have my Father and Father in Law,Uncles, aged 50+ and brothers in law, one aged 13 and the others in their 20s. What do you all make for your male relatives?

Have they got hobbies? you can get all sorts of bits from poundshops and the like.
Try a retro present for the older men (old fashioned sweets etc) and get little bits for cars, I made my daughters boyfriend a Dr Who scarf last year and he was over the moon - made a rod for my own back tho cos I ended up making more for all his mates!:D

Butterfly_Brain

You could also google craft projects and get loads of ideas for presents

MrsTinks

I have GOT to get in gear with this... problem is I intend to start and then I get sidelined on MSE... :rotfl:

rainmac

Cazza wrote: »

I've been thinking about trying to do a homemade Christmas this year too! Just wondered what ideas people had for male relatives? I find female relatives so much easier to get ideas for, but I have no ideas for my male relatives! I have my Father and Father in Law,Uncles, aged 50+ and brothers in law, one aged 13 and the others in their 20s. What do you all make for your male relatives?

I've recently done a car wash bucket, filled a bucket with cheapie car wash stuff - shampoo, couple sponges etc and wrapped it in cellophane. Got the bits from Tesco and Wilkinsons. Also done a liquorice sweets basket for my FIL. He loved it, thought it was very original. I'm going to make sweetie jars for my brother and a friend's OH with sweets they will remember from the 70s-80s rs

Someone on this board - can't memember who (sorry ) came up with an idea of writing/typing 365 facts onto little slips of paper, folding them up and popping in a jar and the recipient can read one per day and learn something new. I've nicked this idea and going to make it for the OH

melancholly

i've made pannettone for lots of people in the past - bit expensive to get all the bits in the first time, but if you do a batch it's ok. i've got the recipe in a book so if anyone wants it, i'll dig it out!

i'm all for consumables wherever possible these days!! especially for anyone male as i always run out of ideas for them!!

i will be watching this thread with interest - lots of great ideas already but it should grow to be really useful!

Lillibet_2

I'm having a homemade/recycled/2nd hand Xmas this year.

So far here's what I managed to make :

Various peices of jewellery including necklaces, ear rings, bracelets & spectacle chains. I have made mens style bracelets for a couple of the men, obviously these need to be aimed at the men who would apprecieate/wear them but a good idea for the right type as not something everyone would give them. (Jewellery making was a unknown skill to me until March!)
Hand decorated jewellery holders : I bought mini wooden maniquins from Wilkos for £3.99 each & coloured each one with kids metallic felt pens to tone in with relevent bedroom colour schemes.
A painted picture : Now I am no artist AT ALL, I just enlarged a photo of what I wanted to paint (in this case my dad's steam engine), traced it, reversed the tracing onto a cheap canvas & painted it. Total cost £15 including buying all paints, brushes, varnish etc from scratch, have got loads left over if I feel brave enough to do any more, would only need to buy more canvases which can be found very cheaply in Wilkos & The Works.
Painted storage jars (actually I got my 3 YO to finger paint them & even if I say so myself, they look damn snazzy, lots of finger dots in different colours!). I bought a cheap spray on glaze from ebay to waterproof them so that the paint won't wash off. I plan to fill one with Redbush tea bags for M-i-L (we have done a matching mug for her too) & the other 2 with HM chocolates/sweets/nut brittle for uncle & B-i-L. I was in Selfridges a couple of weeks ago (strictly window shopping!) & I saw lots of chocolates which were actually pieces of popcorn dipped in plain/white/milk chocolate then drizelled with contrasting colour & flaked chocolate. So easy to do, very cheap & looked stunning!
I bought a Terramundi from a car boot sale & personalised with transfer letters (you could paint but my freehand lettering isn't that good). It now reads "The Smith family Something Special fund" & we plan to put a bit of money in it & give as a family present to other S-i-L & her brood as we never know what to buy them & try to give a family present as it works out too expensive/difficult to buy for them indvidually, plus they never buy for me, just hubby then a joint house-y type present for both of us, plus we never get thank yous' from their kids. Sorry, bit of a mini-rant there!.
Elderflower champange : unfortuantley now too late for you to make this but in the past I have made sloe gin which has always gone down well. It's a useful hostess type gift for all those family & friends you visit/see but don't really exchange formal gifts with. Also made blackberry vodka which is delish but very potent! (but I left mine for 3 months, not a week!!)


I also plan to make :

Snowman jumper for my 3YO (best get on with this, I am a slow knitter!)
Knitted tie for hubby
Hand decorated dressing up storage box for friends daughter (have bought lots of 2nd hand dressing up clothes to go in it)
Monitor frame pin board for my dad, I did post the link on here but no-one responded, guess I was the only one who found it appealing! Basically a padded cork board to fit around a monitor to attach notes etc to.
Possibly buy some cheap plain childrens T shirts & transfer paper & print off some of sons favourite characters to make snazzy T shirts or PJ's for him.

I don't do hampers as I used to do them years ago (I was obviously ahead of my time!) the whole family went through a phase of hamper gifts & now they are a bit old hat! To be honest we all found that we would prefer that the £5 of hamper odds & ends would be better spent on one thing we really wanted as the hampers looked good but didn't really have any deeper appeal. I guess we just outgrew them? We also don't do many sweetie or foodie gifts as most of my side are chefs so it would be coals to Newcastle (and not very good coals at that as they can all cook better than me!) Plus it hopefully encourages them not to give us sweets back!

HTH & good luck, I look forward to hearing what you make!

moonpenny

Hi lauren1,
I was stuck for a pressie for my best friend last year. I thought instead of "smellies" I would do hair products.
I got together some products just for her hair type etc, cut a disk of white card to stand them on and tied the whole thing up with 2 different coloured transparent cellophane sheets. I left the top alljagged pointy bits and tied a ribbon round.
She loved it and said it was her best pressie!

sandy2_2

What about nice cushion. Some of the decorated ones are so expensive in the shops, but by beading or appliqué is easy to do. I´ve just started to do some for our hallowen party with witches, ghosts, bats etc but Xmas themes on the covers would be quite simple eg snowman, stars, Xmas tree (esp using beads for decotations). Materials could be cheaply sourced from car boots. You could also extend the idea to incorporate making long scarves, key fobs etc......HTH

rainmac

Lillibet wrote: »

I'm having a homemade/recycled/2nd hand Xmas this year.

HTH & good luck, I look forward to hearing what you make!

Wow! What a lot of homemade stuff, love the idea of chocolate popcorn, may have to try that

Badger_Lady

Last Christmas, I set up my kitchen as a chocolaterie, and made:
- Cherry liquers
- Brandy liquers (barrel-shaped)
- Truffles

I wrapped them in coloured cellophane and presented them in glasses or mugs depending on the recipient (I rather liked them in a cappuccino mug).

I want to do more jewellery this year - I had a go at some earrings last year but wasn't happy with them More practice needed! I'm also planning to make a jewellery holder for my sister out of wire and papier mache.

My other idea, not sure yet, is to do some homemade "natural" cosmetics for my friends. I've picked up a lot of tips from our various boards and am personally almost chemical-free, and it seems like a fashionable way to do things! I just need to thing about how I present it...