Festive Fivers Competition: The best Xmas pressies for under £5

1998jjb

• Name of present? - Football programme
  
• Do you make it or buy it? - Buy on eBay
  
• Total Cost? Usually about £1 + £1 postage
  
• Details (the more the better)- It's possible to buy football programmes for your loved ones for their favourite teams on the day they were born (or nearest date if they didn't play that day). For the football fan it's a great pressie and if someone can find a way of framing them for £3 or less, even better!
  
• I look on the team in question's websites to see previous results to work out which programme I need. I then look on eBay to find it. It can take a few weeks sometimes but I've picked up every one that I've wanted so far and the reception has been brilliant!
  
• Where possible please add a link if it's an online offer - https://www.ebay.co.uk
  

Smickan

• Name of present? 12 days of Christmas (Kids giving to parents)
• Do you make it or buy it? Make it
  
• Total Cost? Pennies, just need a jar/container/shoe box of some kind, scissors and some paper - maybe some crafty bits so kids can decorate the jar/box too.
  
• Details (the more the better) As children, both me and my brother wanted a way that we could give presents back and obviously having no money we couldn't physically buy anything - and being four years older than me, my brother had enough sense to work out that if you buy things with pocket money - it's still like the parents buying their own things. My gran sat us both down and helped us write a list of 12 things each that we would 'do' when chosen wrapped an old shoe box up with shiny paper each and during the 12 days of Christmas the parents were directed to pull out one piece each from the alternate boxes and we would do whatever was on it just for them '****** will read you a story' '****** will help you clear the table' '***** will have a cuddle time with you' '***** will make you a drink (obviously with help depending what drink it was/how old the child is'. All it took was a bit of time to make it and it really made us feel quite grown up that we were giving our parents things that *we* had thought up.

Stephen_Leak

I took "voluntary" redundancy in 2003 and that Xmas, the then wife came up with the idea of setting not only a £5 limit on presents for each other but also the challenge of getting as many good quality presents (not pound shop tat) as possible within this limit.

To organise my search, I decided to see if I could get something to drink, eat, read, wear and something smelly (ie. cosmetics), spending on average £1 on each.

For the eat, drink and smelly categories, Marks & Spencer got me off to a flying start with a little cube of iced Xmas cake, a little bottle of wine and a little travel-size tube of something or other. A discount bookshop provided the read category, a book of daily horoscopes for my wife's birthsign for the coming year. I must admit I copped out for the something to wear, and got a £1 gift voucher from a clothes shop I knew she liked (I'd been dragged around it often enough!).

celyn90

HelskyB wrote: »

also, my daughter absolutely LOVES making things from HAMA beads, you can get packs from toy shops with different shaped templates (round, square, heart etc) they are quite expensive per pack (anything from £6 upwards) but you can make loads of shapes from each pack, so only works out about 50p each, you can make them in all sorts of different colours and designs, i will be putting them in gift bags as coasters for grannies! fun for daughter (and me) and a lovely treasure for granny.

Oooh, that's lovely! If you are near an IKEA, they do Hama type beads and templates quite reasonably. My sister (she's 24) makes photo frames from them and window hangings from them - they are quite funky.

IKEA do some great kids toys - the old traditional wooden ones (I saw a bead slider thing for 4.99) and some funky quite different cuddly toys. I bought a big fluffy crab for my nephew and a big fluffy squid for my other sister (3.99 each). They also had some lovely little marine themed finger puppets which I thought were great (3.99) and little tea sets/cooking sets.

I also bought some really nice soft fleece blankets in there this year (for 1.49 each) I'm going to blanket stitch round the edges and embroider some stuff in the corner for my friends son (or I might cheat and applique instead, depending on time )

the_roadshow

Name of present: Paperweight
Make it or buy it? Make it
Total Cost? Free
Details: Find a nice smooth stone and paint a pattern on it. This will serve perfectly well as a paperweight with the added benefit that mum or dad will have something in their office which constantly reminds them of you and their life at home. I drew a fancy cat wearing a mulit-coloured scarf and a smiling lion.

the_roadshow

Name of Present: Cartoon
Make it or buy it: Buy it
Total Cost: €2.50
Details: For little boys and girls...
Take a photograph of them in a dressing-up outfit and have it rendered into a cartoon image. Log on to www.cartoonme.com. I understand this service costs €2.50 at the moment (reduced from €3.50) and would make a great present.

the_roadshow

Name of present: Portable reading light
Make it or buy it? Buy it
Total Cost? £2.99
Details: If you know someone who travels a lot and enjoys reading you could buy them a portable reading light (fantastic for car journeys or youth hostel dormitories). It costs £2.99 from “The Works”. With the rest of the money you could pop into your local charity shop and pick them up one or two books you think they might like to read.

the_roadshow

Name of present: Point it book
Make it or buy it? Buy it
Total Cost? £2.99
Details: This fantastic pocket book sold through www.amazon.co.uk for £2.99 is crammed with photographs of everything you might ever wish to point at in an effort to make yourself understood in a foreign country. It is also very small and lightweight measuring just 13cm x 9.3cm x 0.4cm. It helped me buy plasters for my blisters in Italy and prevented me eating many a dubious looking thing in Thailand! A great present for people about to embark upon gap year travels.

celyn90

Name of present? Handprints
Do you make it or buy it? Make it
Total Cost? plain plates or mugs can be picked up in IKEA or wilikinsons quite cheaply (0.50p - £1), single bathroom tiles can often be aquired as samples. ceramic paint (£3)
Details (the more the better)

For this you need a white plate or plain tile and some non toxic washable ceramic or glass paint (I like to use two colours one for the print and one for the writing, but one is fine).

Get your small person to print their hand print onto the tile, plate or plain mug, then leave it to dry. You can then paint on a message (or if the little person is old enough they can paint their name). I like this idea as it's a lovely reminder of how small little ones are. I've done this with rainbow groups and as workshops in schools and it's fun. Also kind of cute for couples too.

If you didn't want to do it on ceramic, you could do it on paper or card then frame it or laminate it - bringing the cost down even further.

Where possible please add a link if it's an online offer
Commerical comapnies do this, but it's pricy. Although what you get doing it this way is not glazed (most commerical companies let you paint/print on unglazed bisque then fire it for you), the paints don't tend to fade so the project is pretty long lasting.

the_roadshow

Name of present: a book
Make it or buy it? ‘Catch’ it
Total Cost? Free
Details:
Log on to https://www.bookcrossing.com and catch a book on its travels. This costs nothing.