Ideas for HM Christmas presents

full-time-mum

How about wheat-bags? 500g wheat cost about 70p from my local health food store and would make a small hand-warmer. 2 would make a small bag similar to those you can buy at craft fairs and 3 would make a larger one. Use scraps of material or get off cuts.

I'm sure that I could get the wheat cheaper in bulk if I negotiated.

I find that bags eventually loose their umph and find I can refresh them by placing them in a micro-wave with a cup of boiling water.
1. Bring cup of water to the boil
2. Put wheat bag into micro too
3. Cook for the length of time that you normal warm your bag (depends on size)
4. Leave in micro wave to absorb the steam. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR otherwise all that lovely steam escapes.

pudding06

More ideas for pressies OS,

I'm going to give my grownup sons vouchers for taxi rides ( off me of course) so when they go out they dont always have to get taxi's costing 15 - 20 quid at time. I will put limits on them eg not at 4am when I'm at work the next day though!! I'll do them on the pc so they look really professional.

I'm going to plant up some bulbs in nice plant pots and also some herbs, I often plant up supermarket ones and they survive very well.


I liked the whisky marmalade ideas dolly day dream !!

and BTW I'm a teacher ( granted secondary + now supply) but why bother with pressies for teacher? surely you've better things to spend your time and money on. Would you do the same for yur doctor or other professional. Teachers are professionals and are doing their jobs. A thank you at the end of the year or at parents evening is great but pressies - nooooo.

sorry if this upsets people

pudds

dolly_day_dream

pudding06 wrote:

More ideas for pressies OS,



and BTW I'm a teacher ( granted secondary + now supply) but why bother with pressies for teacher? surely you've better things to spend your time and money on. Would you do the same for yur doctor or other professional. Teachers are professionals and are doing their jobs. A thank you at the end of the year or at parents evening is great but pressies - nooooo.

sorry if this upsets people

pudds

I agree with you pudds I am a primary school teacher and the 'presents' that I value the most are the letters that parents write to say how much they appreciate what I have done for their child. They go in my scrapbook, along with the cards the children make, to cheer me up when the gov gives us yet another initiative.

thriftlady_2

pudding06 wrote:

and BTW I'm a teacher ( granted secondary + now supply) but why bother with pressies for teacher? surely you've better things to spend your time and money on. Would you do the same for yur doctor or other professional. Teachers are professionals and are doing their jobs. A thank you at the end of the year or at parents evening is great but pressies - nooooo.

sorry if this upsets people

pudds

Thank you for that Pudding, I always feel under pressure to give presents at Christmas and at the end of the summer term. I must say I'm assuming I won't have to bother with my y7 son's teachers this year- there's at least 10 !

I'm an ex-primary school teacher myself, so I try and get things I would have liked like wine or chocs, or hm biscuits. Our primary school has a lot of support staff and I know some mums who buy presents for their children's class teacher, teaching assistant and dinner supervisor :eek: I've never done this especially as for the last 2 years it would have meant buying/making 9 presents plus cards.

I really like Dolly Day Dream's idea of a letter of appreciation. I know I would have loved that;)

kmeast

I always take a homemade hamper to my father at Christmas - cover a box with wrapping paper & fill with things that he would like, but would not buy for himself i.e. nice biscuits, tea, jams etc.

Last year we received a homemade hamper from my sister which was a large pasta bowl filled with organic pasta, sauce, pesto, sun dried tomatoes etc.

Loving these ideas - am planning to steal lots of them!!

loopy-loo73

dolly_day_dream wrote:

I make whiskey flavoured marmalades for the gents. I use one of the Marmade kits and then add in the spirit after I have put the marmalade into jars and mix it in.

Whats a Marmade kit and where do i get 1
whiskey marmalde sounds like just the thing for my grandad if i can get it right !!

Thanks
Lou.

thriftlady_2

Mamade kits are big tins of ready cut seville oranges. You add water and sugar to it and cook, hey presto marmalade ! THey are available in supermarkets and should be with the other jars of marmalade etc.

I like to make marmalade with seville oranges in January when they appear in the shops, but if our supplies run out during the year I use a tin of Mamade- it's brilliant and tbh much less work than cutting up whole oranges.:)

Anastacia

Can anyone recommend a particular software for the calendar making? I took loads of photos of my friends garden in the summer because it was so lovely, think she might like that.

Thanks

Anastacia

dragonllew

pudding06 wrote:

I'm going to give my grownup sons vouchers for taxi rides ( off me of course) so when they go out they dont always have to get taxi's costing 15 - 20 quid at time. I will put limits on them eg not at 4am when I'm at work the next day though!! I'll do them on the pc so they look really professional.

Don't know if this will help but I have found this site for printing out hm vouchers I going to use it to make some as a present for my kids.
Hope the link works as this is my first post.
http://www.fun-vouchers.org.uk/

full-time-mum

thriftlady wrote:

Mamade kits are big tins of ready cut seville oranges. You add water and sugar to it and cook, hey presto marmalade ! THey are available in supermarkets and should be with the other jars of marmalade etc.

If you register with http://www.tasteandsmile.co.uk, they sometimes have money-off coupons for Mamade tins.
Doesn't seem to be one there at the moment though.