The Festive Fivers competition is back!

vikki_louise

Hot choc cones
Under £1, home made with cones from eBay and rest from supermarket or cupboard
Take some nice hot choc and spoon it into a cellophane cone purchased from eBay. Fill it to just over half full then twist the top and tape down on top and cut off any excess. Slip this into another cone (of the same size), pour on mini marshmallows (you can add some edible glitter if you have some). Twist and tie the top with ribbon. Take a candy cane and cellotape it to the front of the cone. Print a label with instructions of how much choc to add to milk/water. Curl the ribbon and then make a tiny cut in the middle of the ribbon at the bottom and then tare it so you end up with 2 strands of curly ribbon, much prettier than the normal way of doing it.

vikki_louise

Light up shoe laces
£1-£5
I saw in Hawkins catalogue light up shoe laces as £5 a pair. I looked on eBay and found them for under £1.50 in a range of colours and ordered some for a friend who likes wearing odd socks, odd bright shoe laces and even odd shoes! At that price I could order a few pairs for him to mix up
Link http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LED-Light-Up-Shoe-Shoelaces-Shoestring-Strap-String-Flash-Glow-Stick-Party-Disco-/280883087007?pt=UK_Clothing_ShoeCare_Shoe_Care_LE&var=&hash=item4165efc69f

vikki_louise

Marshmallows are very 'in' at the moment, it seems everyone is making them and giving them as gifts wrapped in tissue paper or buying shop brought ones, dipping them into melted chocolate or candy melts before being decorated (some add a lollipop stick).

The marshmallows people make are always the same colour but you can make funky ones. Once you have made your marshmallow before it has chance to start setting drop a few drops of food colouring onto the surface and using a toothpick/cocktail stick swirl the colouring around. They look really cool, here is a picture (pic isn't mine)




Basic recipe!http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/marshmallow

Kyliexjx

LittleMrsThrifty wrote: »

Name of present: Wordle
Whether it's bought or homemade: Both
Total cost: £1-£5
Details:
The free website www.wordle.net allows you to create a personalised 'word cloud'. It's a great, personalised gift for those with little time and little creativity (like me!). In the text box enter words or phrases that you associate with a person. It could be their characteristics, places they have visited on holiday, things they have done during 2012, their 'favourites' of any category(!) or even just little catchphrases you have between the two of you. Add as many words as you can. Repeat words which hold more significance as the more times a word is repeated the bigger it will be in the cloud. Once you're done press "go" and your word cloud will appear. You can try out different formats until you're happy. Then save to your computer and print.
You'll then need either a frame (Asda, under £5) or a piece of card to back it onto.
You can also adapt this idea for other occasions such as weddings (words relating to them as a couple such as where they met, holidays etc) or a new baby (baby name big then names of other relatives in proportionate sizes).
A link to the offer if it's online: www.wordle.net
Take a look at this one I created for MSE...

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/5969227/Money

Love this idea thank you for sharing x

lizzieferegait

I have just bought numerous jewellry items on ebay, all solid silver for between 99p and £1.99 most with free postage. Look on ebay and search for womans gifts.There are lots of assorted jewellry all ending within minutes.Wait until 1 min to go and then put your bid in. The items come from China and will arrive in around 3 weeks time.I have had a great success with this so far .

Sorry I dont know how to send a link

lb364

Students/bachelors cookbook
99p
Homemade
This is just a bit of fun that I made when a guy I knew moved out of his parents house.
Buy a ring binder/binder/notebook and decorate the front with 'student or bachelor or lazy man/woman's cookbook' then gather as many takeaway menus local to them as possible and display them inside. You can even put the recipe on the first page: 1. Choose food, 2. Phone number etc.

http://www.theworks.co.uk/v/Q-CONNECT-DISPLAY-BOOK-10POCKET-BLACK/KF01248.html

lisajordan

Name of present: Fancy Dress Box
Whether it's bought or homemade: Both
Total cost:£5.00 at most
Details - go to jumble sales and car boots throughout the year, people frequently sell stock for a few pence particularly at the end. Pick up some fancy dress items - eg pretty dress,tiara,necklace and little pumps and place each set of items on a hanger.
Get a big box and put a little string rail in it, make a hole either end on the outside of the box and tie a knot, pull it taught.
Decorate the box in Christmas paper, turn upside down and cut a flap for a door.
Hang each set of clothes and put a label on the hanger e.g. princess/fairy etc
Sit back and enjoy, they love it !!! I did three for my neices last year and in total it cost be £8.

gehlt7

Name of Present: Personalised Poster
Homemade and Bought
Total cost: 3.59

You can make your own personalised poster for a child's room (or adult's office) using Microsoft Publisher. My son does ice hockey, so I made him a poster of famous quotes about ice hockey and ice hockey players from lists I found online. I added names of famous players (especially those who play(ed) the same position my son plays). I varied the font to make it more graphically interesting and added free copyright free graphics from online sites. You can also get copyright free photos from stock photo site (though these tend to have a small usage fee) or you can use your own photos. This gift would work for children who play other sports or who have particular interests--football, ballet, horse riding, nature, etc. It would work for adults with particular interests as well--golf, gardening, etc.

If you search online companies that do personalised art/posters, you will see that they often do things like lists of people's favourite songs. You can see that with a few free graphics you can easily replicate something similar for yourself. Another idea would be to type up someone's favourite poem (provided it is in the public domain) and add some pretty or funky graphics--perfect for a just-married couple, for e.g.

Create the file and then upload to a poster printing site. I used the online company Posterpigeon, which will print an A2 sized poster for from 3.59 if you can pick it up from their outlet rather than getting it posted. There are many other poster printing sites which are competitive, however. This price is for the basic quality poster. For a few more pounds, you can upgrade on the quality.

One word of warning, using photo printing sites, such as photobox generally won't work with this present as this won't be a jpeg file.

Result: one very happy lad who has a one-of-a-kind poster for his bedroom!

gehlt7

Name of Present: Time for Tea
Bought or Homemade: both
Total cost: under a fiver

This is a great gift for friends to whom you'd like to give something, but can't spend a lot. Trawl antique and charity shops and buy pretty teacups and saucers. These are readily available and you can get some really lovely examples for 2-3 quid. Often you can buy not just the teacup and saucer, but also a matching side plate. Buy a mixed box of tea (the kind that have individually wrapped teabags) and stuff as many as you can into the cup. Wrap in a gift bag or in a vintage tea towel or silk scarf (also very cheap and readily available in charity shops). If your friend is not a tea drinker, you could fill the cup with good quality coffee beans. If you have managed to get a set with a sideplate, you could add a gift of homemade biscuits, perhaps including the recipe. I have also varied this present by putting a little (re-used) florist's foam in the cup and filling with flowers from the garden. At Christmas, you could fill with gathered holly.

Result: a lovely present that a friend can use every day, which you can tailor to the individual depending on the design of the cup and what you put in it.

kitschkitty

Name of present: North Pole Street Light
Whether it's bought or homemade: homemade
Total cost: From £1 depending on the materials you choose to use.
Details (where it's from, how to make it etc): http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2010/12/make-a-north-pole-street-light/


Based on the above tutorial you can make a really cute ornament/night light (not suitable for small children) and customise it any way you like.

Your one essential purchase is a solar path light, available from poundland & 99p shops or available on ebay for £2.01 delivered.

After that you can be as thrifty (or spendy) as you like and use whatever materials you already have or can find cheaply.

As your light will most likely be black or silver you can decorate it with paint, ribbon, tape or paper. (I did see Christmas design ones in Robert Dyas for about £2 this week).

A polystyrene base will cost £2.19 on ebay but a more MSE alternative would be to make a papier mache base.

Other alternatives could include plasticine, air dry clay, salt dough (ensure once you have shaped your dough you press in you light and remove it, before baking) plaster of paris (in a suitably sized mould) or recycled polystyrene packaging.
You just need to ensure your base is sturdy & heavy enough that your light won't fall over.

You can decorate your base with fake snow, fleece, felt, fabric, paint (if using clay or papier mache), tissue or crepe paper, etc.

Use any suitable scrap of card to make the sign (you could even recycle a cereal box) and if you don't have any chain to hand scraps of string, ribbon or wool etc. will work equally well.

Finish off with embellishments glued on, details drawn in pen or painted on, or any other additions you like - such as a few pompom snowballs.