Cheap Christmas Gifts

In My Humble Opinion
1

All right, who is desperately poor and has a shopping list for (other people’s) Christmas presents?

I swear, it gets worse every year. I like to give people (family only) nice gifts, but if I buy what I know they’d like, I wind up broke. This year, as usual, I really can’t afford to get anything for anybody, but sending nothing is not really an option.

(And yes, I wish Christmas would just go away, but it’s not going to, so we’re stuck.)

One year I made cassette tapes of my own music for everyone. Another year, I made bootleg compilation CDs of my favorite music. There was the time I baked sugar cookies, sprinkled them with red&green sugar, and mailed 'em off. Last year I made up little baskets filled with candles, a string of Christmas lights, and a few other stocking-stuffer-type items - flashlights, Walker’s Shortbread, little tschotskis, whatever the stores had for less than a few bucks. That was the least successful gift, I felt - it seemed like I was mailing off a bunch of cheap trash which would get immediately thrown out, while my poverty was being mocked.

So what’ll it be this year? That low grinding feeling in the pit of my stomach has begun…how I hate this time of year.

2

Masonite, if you’re up to it, I can walk you through whipping up a bunch of handcrafted soap. It would need to cure for 5-6 weeks, but you could put a “use after” date on it.
Handcrafted, wonderful for the skin, folks love it.

OR, I could walk you through making a batch of handcrafted candles…supplies won’t set you back much, and you could end up with a nice bunch of gifts for everyone on your list.

I’ll see what other ideas I can come up with…

Best,
karol

3

Are you crafty? One idea I have is to buy sweaters/sweatshirts/fleeces from Goodwill, and cut and sew them to make pillows. I haven’t tried it yet, but I think it will work…there are some gorgeous patterns and materials out there, and the prices can be good if you look for discounted items to use.
(See? The ideas are just pouring out…)

4

For myself I usually get interesting gifts for people that are within my range… I gave Dad a run over cat with a recipe for ‘Roadkill Cat Stew’ and some of his fave coffee which is hard to find here in Canada. Step-mom loves teddies… Cousins get gift certificates to fave stores (Older gets comic book store ones youngest gets disney store) Brother gets HMV… usually not above ten bucks but they love them…

Try and make some stuff for them… homemade candles work… I’m thinking this year for Dad getting a CD of my singing some songs he likes (can get them made at this sweet little place on Whyte)

5

Collages! Collages are great gifts, because you can’t screw them up too badly, you can get magazines dirt cheap or free, and you can tailor them to fit the person you’re giving them to.
I have a friend who gives bookmarks, photo frames, cards, etc…all made from beautiful collages that she has made herself. They’re beautiful, and lovely gifts because each one is personalized.

6

Obsidian, you sent a dead cat? :eek: A real one? Don’t answer; I don’t want to talk about it any more.

Yes, but not in the way you mean. :wink: Bodypoet, I’m intrigued by this soap idea. When I think of homemade soap I picture going down to the basement with a bucket of lye, and winding up with nasty gray goopy sharp-edged blocks of soap which you use to wash the dog with. But it sounds like instead you’re talking about something pretty and nice - “folks love it” - I’m holding you to that.

Do you want to go into it here, where we can edify others, or email me privately? It’s up to you.

I’m not crafty at all; I have no manual creativity, and zero patience for the kind of work involved in, say, sewing. Candlemaking is nice, but I did it a fair bit as a kid, with laughably hideous and memorable results, and it strikes me as not something I want to do now for gifts. “Still making those ratty candles, I see. God, he’s pathetic.” ( :: Clunk of candle landing in trashcan :: )

As you can see I have issues.
:slight_smile:

7

If your recipients are anything like me, masonite, they love getting homemade baked goodies for Christmas.

Anyway, here’s an idea, my now-sister-in-law (then brother’s girlfriend) one year put potpourri and Christmas lights in jars and topped it off with lace for nice scented Christmas decorations to give as gifts.

8

Nope, at least not a real one. I used to work at a store that carried these mock beanie babies. One was a two-headed dog, one was a gull that looks like it had constipation etc etc. The cat was kinda cool it was sewn flat in the middle and had tire tracks over it’s back, one eye was an x and the other was bugging out. Old family joke* we have going.

[sub]*When we lived in a small town my Dad’s friend was on a list to be called whenever someone hit a deer/moose/whatever to come pick it up. Whoever got there first got the meat/hide etc. For a couple of years there we ate almost solely meat that came from ‘road kill’. I love to tell people I have eaten road kill. Usually freaks them out as they think of Beverly Hillbillies style stopping in the middle of a street to pick up a dead cat/possum whatever carcass with a shovel.[/sub]

9

I’ve just had a scathingly brilliant idea. (Thanks, Kat.)

I’ve been wanting to teach myself how to make fudge. Now’s the time. I’ll perfect the technique and whip up several batches. My aunt used to send fudge, and we’d start longing for it around October.

Don’t let my idea stop others’ ideas from pouring in, though, and I still want to learn about soap.

10

Fudge sounds good. If you have any women to shop for, a couple pairs of pliers, and a place where you can get chain and beads… ta-da! Necklaces. I usually give jewelry when I can’t think of anything else. Any fool can string beads or put a pendant on a chain.

Granted, I usually go overboard and make Austrian crystal and silver stuff with pearls, but I’m really obsessive compulsive, and there’s an excellent jewelry supply place here in Toronto.

I still have to get stuff for Dad, and I’m running out of money. Urgh.

11

Christmas tree ornaments! Even if you’re not crafty, they turn out looking not bad, just a little avant-garde. And they always get put on the tree. You can make lace snowflakes, or something you drew, or sew something…there’s all kinds of stuff you can make and call a tree ornament. Or you could make those things…what do you call them?-you put cloves in an orange and it smells great for forever. Nobody wants to make them, but most people appreciate one as a gift.

And I wanna learn how to make soap!

12

Pomander balls. Just the thing for making your underwear smell like apple pie.

13

This has been a HUGE topic of conversation on the wedding board (brides to be tend to have a pretty limited budget) and I’ve seen a lot of really fun ideas. Cookie/bread/cocoa mixes in jars are cheap, easy, and usually well-received, as are canned breads. For the cookies in a jar thing, you just pick a recipe, layer the dry ingredients in a canning jar, put a label with cooking instructions on, and maybe dress the lid up with a square of fabric.

My personal favorite Christmas gift craft, though, is stockings. These are not only really cheap and really easy to make (even if you don’t sew), they’re lightweight and thus cheap to ship.

14

Oh, another great gift idea is to make wine glass charms. You just take earring loops, string on beads and a charm, and you’re all set. You can get enough stuff to make several sets for $20 or so. These go over really well with people who entertain or who drink wine on a regular basis.

15

I’m pretty crafty, so I love christimas time as an excuse to make things for the people I know.

This year, my friends and I are having a huge cookie baking party. We’re all going in on massive amounts of basic supplies, and we will all bring a recipe or so and any special ingredients. We’ll each make many batches of our own recipe, and then we’ll all take some of everyone’s cookies so that we’ll have a variety of types to give out as presents.

I’m also planning on making some homemade scarfs out of polar fleece. They are really easy to make and barely require sewing. You don’t need a machine or anything. I’m planning on putting cute things like flowers and cat faces and stuff on the ends of mine…

In the past I’ve made a lot of gifts with mod-podge. You use it to decopage and you just slather it all over an item, arrange cut-out pictures and stuff on it, and slather some more on top. When it dries, it looks really nice and is pretty sturdy. You can buy it at any craft store. With it I’ve made/decorated stuff like an asian-themed photo album for my uncle’s trip to Vietnam, a cup with Mountain Dew logos all over it for an avid Mountain Dew fan, a thermos with tea pictures on it for a tea fan, any number of journals and blank books, a small table with personally nostalgic photos all over it, a lamp with pictures of Paris all over it…all kinds of stuff really.

Oragami paper is really great to mod-podge with.

Or you could learn to make duct tape wallets. There are quite a few web guides out there, but I just made up my own pattern, as the ones out there are too big for my tastes. I use a strip of paper as foundation. It takes a while, and it isn’t really all that fun, but the end result is awesome. If you want to decorate them, just lay some paper decorations to the outside part and put clear tape over it. I usually use pretty oragami paper, but you could use anything in the world that the person you’re making it for would like. You can use any kind of clear plastic (I use cut up report covers, but I have had sucess with plastic from food packegeing as well) to make ID windows- just cut out the appropriate size, edge with duct tape, and incorporate into the wallet.

It isn’t everyone’s tastes, but you can make nice colorful throw pillow covers out of bandanas. You can buy bandanas for a buck or so at craft store, sew three edges together (you can even do it by hand), turn it all inside out and put a cheap pillow (which you can also buy at craft stores, or buy ugly ones from discount stores) inside.

Thats enough for one night. I guess I won’t get into the time I hand-sewed a bathrobe from towels and washclothes…

16

Okay, okay, I make my own soap. Any of you want to learn, email me privately at jen_shriver@yahoo.com, or we can start a thread in Cafe Society. I’m sure there are other soapers here who can contribute recipes and whatnot.

17

I vote for the thread in Cafe Society. I wanna make soap too.

I think the cookies/fudge idea is great too. I would love a tin of fudge around christmas time. You can buy tin at the dollar store or a party supply place very cheap.

18

Framed old photographs of your loved ones. My sister-in-law did this for MIL last year. The frames can be cheap or expensive, and usually you can find a friend to scan and print copies if you don’t have the equipment at home. MIL was thrilled!

19

Ah! Frames. You can buy cheep wooden or plastic frames at craft stores or pottery places or even yard sales and decorate them. Lots of fun.

20

Thread’s been created, Making Soap…. I’ll try to dig up some recipes and intstructions and the like. Meanwhile, feel free to ask questions or request a recipe for a specific type of soap (goat’s milk, peppermint, etc).