Presents that 'bulk out' but reduce to nothing (or very little)

delain

For younger children a taxi driver once told me that he'd recently moved house, so he wrapped up a massive house-move type box after he'd filled it with blown up balloons (i think he said over 100) and his DD and DS (3 and 4) were busy with the balloons for days and the box for weeks, and it cost him about £2 for the balloons.

amyandoli

jorose wrote: »

Anyway for bulking out pressys how about inflatables? like a chair you could blow it up before its wrapped then can be let down and stored away? :rolleyes:

I was going to say this too, I just bought my little cousin a blow up xmas tree from the £1 shop, to make her gifts look bigger, then she can deflate it and bring it out each year :j

spankymonkey_2

my daughter 16, loves her socks, so i scoured poundland,claires accessories etc for different designs of socks, got some gift boxes from the 99p shop and made her sox in a box!

crazy_girl

kjmtidea wrote: »

I searched for ages trying to find suitable smellies for my 8 year old son, in the end I bought him some showergel in Tesco called Jelly Belly, it is cherry flavoured and smells delicious but not too girly. They also had a blueberry one.

my best mates son whose 5 idolises my hubby so owt we have in our bathroom, he wants, wether its lynx, avon, body shop etc.

maybe if theres someone that they look up to, you can just tell them thats what they use?

crazy_girl

claffys wrote: »

My boys are very into wwe and at £10 a figure in some places they wouldn't be getting very many.

We have bought a bundle of 39 figures on e bay for £35 :j

I'm going to try and find a really big box and fill it with shredded papaer and they can have fun trying to find them all lucky dip stylie :rotfl:

We are skint this year so they are not getting a 'main' present but have managed to get them a wwe ring each in the 75% off sale at wilkinsons online so I hope they will be happy with those + a few cheap wrap ups.

They are 9 & 7 and ds1 best friend is kina an only child (brother is an adult) and is getting LOTS :eek: and it is worrying me that my ds will be very dissapointed (though it was his idea a few months ago to buy the figures on ebay.

Being a mummy is so hard at times lol

Em
x

i did that for my sister's 18th, a big box wth 18 little pressies in it and paper from my shreader, even at 18 she loved it!

my hubby likes WWE too! i got him figures from B&M bargains for £2.99 each, a rey mysterio and ring from wilko for £14ish and a talking microphone from money saver for £4.99

crazy_girl

Ste_C wrote: »

So many things also get "Gift boxed" at Christmas, like shower gel and aftershave combos. Two very small items nicely packed in a big box. Why?

so they can double the price!

tdd111

sarahf191979 wrote: »

DS2 (6) is mad on NCIS so have made him a little NCIS kit, I got a tool box in black and have stuck NCIS on the side, filled it with rubber gloves, cotton buds, magnifying glasses, tweezers, crimescene tape, chalk and some other bits I can't remember at the moment, total price of it is less than £10 Also need to print a few bits of for him but it all fits inside the little tool box.

i love this idea!!!!!!!! fab!!!!!!!!
well done u!!!!!!!!!

moromir

sarahf191979 wrote: »

DS2 (6) is mad on NCIS so have made him a little NCIS kit, I got a tool box in black and have stuck NCIS on the side, filled it with rubber gloves, cotton buds, magnifying glasses, tweezers, crimescene tape, chalk and some other bits I can't remember at the moment, total price of it is less than £10 Also need to print a few bits of for him but it all fits inside the little tool box.

Pity I've only just seen this - I did forensic science at uni I could have sent you a bunch of bits (sealed sterile swabs, lab glasses etc).

If you can stand the (potential) mess - what about a roll of the wide sellotape (basically what we used to lift prints) and a little tub of talcum powder and a paint brush? (recommend the softest one you can find)

I've just gone and rifled through my old notes cos I was sure I had some blank 'autopsy' sheets somewhere (nothing too graphic, its like an outline of a generic person and we used to record sites of injury on them) but I can't find them, if I do I'll scan one in if you like.

rosekitten

in the Homebargain stores they have a
pretty,large christmas decs box for £2.99
Its nice enough to put a gift in and then after
snaffle it back to store the decs in,it has the
cardboard seperaters that slot inside to store
baubles safely.So kind of a dual purpose

Spendless

Any feedback on whether these ideas worked?

My nan looking at my daughter's presents on xmas day asked me where I was going to put it all, but I knew though it looked a lot by the time the books and annuals were on the bookcase I'd cleared, the colouring pencils and crayons replaced the old ones, toiletries went into bathroom, jewellery box replaced old broken one and the money box went on side (slight slip up here kids have 5 money boxes between the 2 of them!) that there would only be a couple of toys to add to her toybox and I was right.:T

Son's are bulkier and still need to be kept in big boxes, but will fit as he has the bigger bedroom. His stuff is bigger cos he's into science and got a lot of 'create your own earthquake', 'soap making kit' type presents and needs to do them before they reduce to nothing. He was also away o/n on boxing day so hasn't had as much time at home to play with his things.

Overall, very pleased.:j

But overall