LOW COST homemade christmas gifts

mum2one

FieryAngel wrote: »

Hi
Home and Bargains have some wicker baskets for sale - I bought a couple for making up the previously mentioned 'movie nights in' box or similar and was going to make it a bit nicer by getting some shredded tissue paper to lay on the bottom. These might be worth looking at to see if you can use them for your jams They were about £1.99 I think! Or they had some prettier lined ones for about £4.
Can i ask how far in advance you would make your jams and marmalade?
Thanks:)

Great minds think alike, the £1.99 baskets from home bargains are really good quality, they look like you spent about £6+ on them.

You could always use a tray, and cover that with cello wrap, xx

boredjellybean

chuku wrote: »

I made a hand painting Russian nesting doll for my hubbie. I bought the blank doll on amazon for around £8 and used some acrylic paint I had at home to paint it. He wanted one of himself (bit narcissistic? ) but I suppose you could make them Christmas themed or paint them with your kids' favourite cartoon characters. Should be good fun for the little ones to paint themselves as well. It was for me anyway

I'm also making roasted rosemary almonds like these:



They're really easy to make and look lovely in little cellophane bags with a nice hand-written label.

Also planning to give these little fellas a go this year:

these look amazing, how long will they last for in the cellophane ?

whingealot

DD & I have been making presents for teachers & TAs out of cheap beads & florist wire. They are each getting some Xmas decorations & a keyring, which we've wrapped & put on Santa sleighs:

whingealot

The rings for the keyrings were free. Not sure if all bead shops sell them like this but at my local market they sell a string of about 100 beads for 60p & they're sold on the keyrings, so a free keyring thrown in!

Jobseeeker

Ooh I love those little santa sleighs.

I want to replace the candy canes though, I once read something about people losing teeth to rock (like edinburgh rock, brighton rock etc) and I presume these candy canes are the same stuff?

Any ideas?

moneysaverangel

kerri_gt wrote: »

I ordered some similar style bottles from Germany - making home made oils for presents.

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I happen to have 6 for sale too as i wasn't sure how many I'd need. PM me if you like.

I was actually very pleasantly surprised by them, look fab, esp for Xmas.

Otherwise if you want the square bottles have a look on eBay or I can try and recommend a few sites. What size were you looking for?

Hi Thanks very much for looking these up and the kind offer. Initially I did look on ebay and lakeland where I found some nice bottles and then I thought - "what are you doing - just decant the vodka from the bottle, clean it up a bit, fill with blueberry or raspberry liqueur, decorate the top maybe, and use that. Recyling and money saving:T. It isn't for a present, but more to create a good impression when a "rather better off friend", visits this Christmas:rotfl:. It was just a moment of self doubt and weakness.:rotfl:

Thanks anyway:)

Regards
m.

FieryAngel

One low cost Christmas present idea which I've been experimenting with over the last year or so are those large slabs of chocolate that are usually very expensively bought from places like Hotel Chocolat.

I like the idea of how they look but find them too expensive so I decided to make my own and make bespoke versions for whoever the recipient was. For my best friend, I bought 2 bars of dairy milk and melted it over a pan. I put some greaseproof paper on a baking tray and poured the melted chocolate onto it and spread it out to get a rectangular shape - I don't try too hard to make it perfect as I think it looks better with quirky edges
While the chocolate is still liquid I added mini marshmallows and marzipan to it and sprinkled some edible glitter over it and left it to harden. This can then be wrapped in cellophane and given as a gift or roughly broken into largish pieces and put into a presentation bag. My friend absolutely loves this chocolate and is always begging me to make more.

I like that you can just add any ingredient you know the person will like - I've also added dried fruit and various nuts for my dad (though I melted dark chocolate for him). You could even add in flavoured extract to get a hint of chocolate mint or orange flavour. I've also melted a small amount of white chocolate, poured it on top of the other chocolate and used a cocoktail stick to swirl it around for a lovely marbled effect.

It looks just as effective as the expensive ones but doesn't cost anywhere near as much! Sorry I don't have any pictures, I've stupidly not taken any!

Katiehound

I am always reading about sock monkeys, but have you seen sock cats? I have one half made out of children's socks (up to size 13)
Tutorial here:
http://www.houseofmeow.com/2012/08/how-to-make-sock-cat.html#!/2012/08/how-to-make-sock-cat.html
How cute is that??

the_devil_made_me_do_it

Can someone tell me how to make the cellophane cones?

mum2one

the_devil_made_me_do_it wrote: »

Can someone tell me how to make the cellophane cones?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/WHITE-Shape-Cello-Party-Cellophane/dp/B009FBG1XU/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1385170123&sr=8-8&keywords=cello+cone+party+bags

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pack-25-Pattern-Cellophane-Display/dp/B005L9ZDU2/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1385170178&sr=8-11&keywords=cello+cone+party+bags

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ORANGE-Shape-Cello-Party-Cellophane/dp/B009FBF70S/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1385170246&sr=8-3&keywords=orange+cello+cone+party+bags

to be honest its just as easy to buy the cello bags, just popped a couple of links from Amazon, (I've got the 3rd set - not that I need a 100, but they were cheap enough to last a couple of yrs!) x