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

MandyQue

Gift: Handmade photo/picture frames
Make or buy? Make
Cost: pennies

Details

This is something for the children to do, my dd made one at school for me last year. She took some thick card and painted it, mine was spray painted silver. Then she stuck some pasta bows around the edges and they were painted with metallic green paint. The photo was then glued into the middle of the frame, I was chuffed with it Kids could probably make their own with tinsel, glitter, different paints or pasta, beads, sequins, whatever crafty odds and ends you have lying around.

superdood

Every year I get my kids to make presents from them to give to their grandparents, aunties and uncles, these are the ones we've done so far:

Name of present: Filled Christmas Cracker
Make or buy: Both
Cost: £5 makes about 10
Save as many toilet rolls or kitchen rolls as you can and get the kids to wrap the toilet roll with coloured tissue paper or do some festive drawings on plain paper, fasten one end with a bit of ribbon (you can buy ribbon for about 25p a metre) fill the empty toilet roll with sweeties like minature heroes (or whatevers on special offer at your supermarket) and fasten the other end with another bit of ribbon and viola you (should) have a christmas cracker! You could also include a little drawing from the kids, or some homemade jokes perhaps!

Name of present: Christingle
Make or Buy: Both
Cost: under £1
You need a large orange, some red ribbon, a white candle and a jar of cloves. you wrap the red ribbon around the centre of the orange, place the candle in the top and then decorate the orange with the cloves, the kids can do pictures with them or write messages like 'I love you gran' etc, etc...and they make nice festive christmas decorations and smell really nice too!

Name of present: Family photo
Make or buy: ?
Cost: Free
One year for our parents Christmas present we took all the kids to boots as there was a photographer there and they were running a promotion of a free medium size print, so we had all the grandchildren together in a professional photograph .There are always photographers doing this (companies like pixiphoto) as they take loads of pictures and show them all to you in the hope that you'll buy loads more photos, but you are under no obligation and can just take the free print. It is unframed but you can buy really nice cheap frames from wilkinsons or £stretcher for under a fiver! W

Name of present: Personalised mug or glass
Make or buy: Both
Cost: Under £5
I know this has probably already been included but I just wanted to say DON'T buy those mug sets from wilkinsons or £ stretcher, for the price you pay for one of those you could actually make about 6 of them if you shop around. Buy a set of plain white ceramic mugs or a set of basic cheap glasses (most shops do these as homestarter sets, woolies worth it range, morrisons do really cheap glasses for under £1,etc, I think I got my mugs from Tesco) next from a stationary/ art shop buy a set of ceramic paint or glass paint and get designing. I did ones like 'number one grampy' or 'I love my daddy' etc, with the mugs you have to make sure you put them in a warm oven for a few minutes after painting, it helps the paint to stay on the mug permanenetly so it won't just wash off in the dishwasher!!

Name of present: Personalised wrapping paper
Make or buy: Make
Cost: A few sheets of paper? 10p??
Save on the cost of wrapping paper by getting the kids to draw festive pictures and wrapping grandparents presents in their pictures........the kids will love helping you and drawing and grandparents love having a keepsake, the wrapping paper is a present in itself!!

RachelD

Present - many
Buy
Cost -varied

If you search for your town name or a relative's town in Ebay you get some unusual and surprising items that make excellent gifts This is what I found when I keyed in Bridgwater

Old postcards
1903 Ordnance Survey maps (specialist map sites also do these) .
Local history books
Book on the local railway stations /lines
Old football programmes
Cross stitch kits for Bridgwater Kiln and the Willow Man- both local lndmarks and items I've never seen in a local shop.
Picture of a Bridgwater Ketch built 1790
China ornaments with town name on.

I bought the maps last year and older folks loved them. I've also bought and framed old 10 shilling notes and these were popular with older people too.


I don't want to sound like an Ebay addict but if you key in an hobby or interest you get unusual gifts. eg I found an artist's palette charm which with a silver chain was (so her husband said\) a friend's most popular gift. I got some horse related jewellery too for another friend.

Stressed_DB

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this one but Yellow Moon/Baker Ross or craft shops sell ceramic pens for about £2.99 they are a bit like a permanent marker but you draw a design on a plate mug etc then bake in oven to make permanent. (They can be removed up until this point so ideal for rubbing out mistakes!)
Ikea do great mugs for 49p these can be decorated then given to Teachers, Grandparents Aunties etc.a lovely personal gift that everyone loves. Especially cute from kids!:rotfl:

Lizbeth

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THIS IS LAST YEAR'S THREAD...

Please post your ideas on the new thread - festive fivers competition 2008:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1264319

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:xmassmile

drapes

Name of Present: I love you sweety
Make it
Cost: Approx £2 for cellophane and things to make it look pretty!
For couples who have been together TOO LONG and know the real meaning of Love!!!

'I love you sweety' is a selection of home baked 'sweeties' with a special memory attached to each one. E.g A home baked cookie wrapped in cellaphane with a post it 'I love you sweety even though you would rather play champ manager'. The present should consist of as many sweet things you can make from anything you can find in the cupboard and should be personalised with all the 'endearing' qualities and memories of your loved one. The sweet things should be wrapped appropriatly to your partners 'true love'. E.g put in his golf bag, or football socks!!!

fullofsurprises

INITIALLY I FOUND www.ebabybuys.com looking for a cheap first holy communion dress which I found for £19.99 the same dress WAS £96 IN A LARGE SHOPPING CENTRE, I THINK THE COMPANY ARE CLEARNING OUT CHRISTENING WEAR ETC...

I GOT A FIFI AND THE FLOWER TOTS HAT SET FOR £4.99! THEY HAD BOB THE BUILDER , BRATZ ETC...

I GOT THIS WONDERFUL PARTY DRESS £10 LESS THAN THE COMPANY WHO MAKE THEM SELL THEM!


i also got a babies first xmas set for £9.99

Centurian_2

Buy big presents and split them up.

This really works if you have lots of people to buy for.
Whittards have 3 for 2 on their boxed teas and coffees. They are £15 but contain 8 boxes of different teas and the boxes are so pretty they are easily givable separately. We had 8 couples so we got 2 boxes of tea and 1 of coffee (£16) so for £31 we had 2 boxes of tea and 1 of coffee per couple. (£1,94pp)
We made some cookies (less than £1 per person) We then bought one of those 99p classic books for everyone and put it in a pretty bag. Total cost (£3.93pp)

The beauty of this is that although they were all the same, they all look so individual.

jem1276

almar wrote: »

This thread should keep going it's very helpfull.
I am chuffed to bits to have found this xmas present for a younger person.

Name of present: Paint your own piggy bank (a plain piggy in a box with coloured paint pots & brush)
Do you make it or buy it? Buy it From Wilkinsons.
Total Cost: £3.50 + £1 coin to put inside £4.50
Details: Wilkinsons Stores.

They have similar but with pens to draw you won piggy banks for £1.99 in home bargains/quality save. :T

choccyface2006

jem1276 wrote: »

They have similar but with pens to draw you won piggy banks for £1.99 in home bargains/quality save. :T

I bought some from Woolies last week...

were £4 now £2 each

3 for 2

Save 20%

=£3.20 for THREE or just over £1.06 each!

There are really nice too with paints and a brush.

Sarah x