We booked our reservation for our moving truck and it is going to cost us about 2 grand to get to the state of Texas. Lovely eh? This will leave us quite short on cash for presents this year.
Anyways, I am trying to brainstorm for some great, inexpensive, even home-made gifts we can give to friends/family members and I am just coming up way short on ideas... Thank goodness I have so many crafty, amazing friends who read my blog...
So, what are your ideas? Any and all are welcome! (:
9 comments:
I always like doing homemade caramels or pesto!
One year some friends of ours made us a simple clay ornament with a scripture on Christ. We still love looking at it every year!
If I was crafty I'd totally give you ideas. But I am so NOT crafty. The only thing that came to my mind is that for a while now I've been wanting to make a custom calendar for my parents with pictures of the family, but I haven't yet. I don't know if you're parents use a wall calender, but if they do, maybe they'd like it.
There are some really inexpensive CUTE easy sewing projects on www.makeitandloveit.blogspot.com. (Not that you have tons of time to sew either haha)
let's see, steve and i made our gifts last year...
i made little photo albums for our parents. pics of each of us with our parents as we grew up and wrote things they have taught us or done for us that we are grateful for in it as well.
steve made a sun jar for my bro's family. you can see that here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Home-made-Sun-Jar/
and steve also made a marshmallow shooter for his bro. pbc pipe and spray painted black. that was also a hit, literally. very fun.
by the way, if you are leaving, we REALLY have to get together before you go. our last year thanksgiving plans fell through and we never re-planned!
I also made photo albums for the parents and I made feather head bands for the sisters. Aurora is getting a $10 play tent from ikea.
The year we moved to Utah from Texas ( almost draining our savings) I made a variety of cookies for everyone and put them in a cute holiday box with candies.
good luck! I think it is so much fun to still be able to give gifts at Christmas even when all your money is going somewhere else.
one of my favorite inexpensive gifts is you can buy a can of GODIVA Hot Chocolate from Barnes and noble or even like Dillards and it's only 10 bucks! I usually buy a bag of marshmallows to go with it. You can add more stuff to it like mugs, card games, etc.. or just keep it cheap. It tastes SOOO good too.
You can make the half-page photo albums from Mypublisher.com and I think they are about 10 or 12 bucks. Those are always fun.
Another fun thing that is super cheap is to make photo magnets. You can buy clear flat stones from the dollar store and glue a picture behind it so you can see it through the stone. Then just glue a magnet to the back. Your mom would LOVE having magnet faces of everyone in your family. haha. Good luck.
Buy clear Christmas tree ornaments and personalize them. You can't paint, stickers, open them up and do something inside, the possibilities are endless.
Word blocks: take a 2x4, cut into block size, sand them, then paint color of your choice. You can buy the vinyl letters (or paint your own on there). For example, I have one that says "EEK" for Halloween, one "USA", one says "SUMMER", etc. Each letter on a different block. I've tied ribbon, raffita, etc. to spruce it up. I can send pictures.
"Kissmas" board Advent calendar: super easy. Get a small coat rack thingy, paint color of your choice, write "How many days til Christmas?" then hang little bags from each knob and fill them with Hershey's kisses. Everyday you can eat a kiss and however many are left in the bag is how many days until Christmas.
Block letters: easiest of all. Buy a block letter and put scrapbook paper and any embellishments and then mod podge over. Hang with ribbon. I have a 'K' and 'T' hanging in the girls room. Super cute.
On the "Kissmas" board, there are like 4 knobs...one for each member of family or kid. That way no fighting on who gets the Kiss for that day!
We had a RS activity last year where we made these adorable JOY letters kinda like what's been mentioned above. Go here to see mine http://s-a-sorensonfamily.blogspot.com/2008/12/joy.html
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