Homemade and Inexpensive Christmas Gifts

These are some of the things we made this year to give to our family and friends as Christmas gifts. I couldn't post about them before Christmas, for obvious reasons. :-) The children and I finished school a couple weeks before Christmas, and then spent a good bit of time making gifts and other preparations for our celebration of Christ's birth. It was so fun! I am so thankful that we could give small gifts to loved ones this year, as last year we gave only to our own children. And even though these items are not in the same league as a Wii or a flat screen tv, or even a new cell phone, they were stitched and glued and made with lots of love and gratitude.

I sewed these satchets for the adult women in our families. You can see the lavender filled pouch sticking out of the red bag. The lavender was from Colonial Williamsburg, and I have had it for two years waiting to get my sewing machine fixed so I could make satchets with it! It still smells sooooo good! When the lovely smell finally dissipates, these can be used as jewelry bags when traveling.

Cost of making these was about $20 for 8. They could have been made more cheaply, but I chose to use two fabrics for each color rather than just one. Over the green and red solid fabric there is a sheer netting with sparkles on it to make it extra pretty!



I found these mugs on sale for 4.99 at Dayspring. We added some hot chocolate instant mixes and some chocolate covered candy cane stir sticks that the children had made. Isn't this a cute gift? When I ordered from Dayspring.com I was very impressed with how well their breakable things were packed, and my order came in just 3 days!


Here is the refrigerator frame the children made for my parents. It has magnets on the back and the bottom is open to slide a picture in and out. The stacking kids photo took about 5 tries and an hour of tweaking on the computer, but didn't it turn out great? We sent these out with our Christmas letters this year.


Cost of frame: foam frame shapes were 8 for $1, so one was just .12 cents. Bucket of foam letters, $4.99 with lots leftover for other projects = approximately .50 cents each.

The children made several more drip ball ornaments to give as gifts. We realized that we could use use all the colors to make this a "wordless book" ornament that tells the whole gospel story. Here are the lyrics to the wordless book song:

My heart was black with sin
Until the Savior came in.
His precious blood I know,
Has washed me white as snow.
And in God's Word I'm told
I'll walk on streets of gold.
What a wonderful, wonderful day!
He washed my sins all away.

We added a bit of green to represent growing in faith.



Cost of each ornament: ball ornament - .48 cents; paint $2.49 per bottle but we used just a miniscule amount on each ornament with lots leftover for other projects; ribbon $1.99 per spool with lots leftover for other projects = approximately $1.25 each.

I also got one of these small plates from Dayspring to give as a hostess gift. We went to a Christmas party, and I took this plate filled with cookies and then told our hostess it was hers to keep. It's small, but I just love it! John 3:16 is also printed on the back. It was $10.99 when I bought it, but now they are on sale for halfprice!


What inexpensive things did you make or find for gifts this year?