by Laurie Childree

Created on: September 10, 2008   Last Updated: September 27, 2008

Christmas is here again and the shelves are being filled with all sorts of things for us to buy and take home to wrap for Christmas morning. How many of us can afford them with the way the costs keep rising? We may have to make our own gifts this year. Yes, make our own Christmas gifts to give.

Homemade Christmas gift ideas are important for those of us suffering from a nearly non-existent gift giving budget. When you look around your house you will find numerous ideas for making gifts to give to those in your immediate family and a look around the homes of others on your list will give you an idea of what to give them. There will be some things that you will see that will need accessories and some things that you see will give you ideas for new things for them.

Kids can make small scrapbooks for their parents. Cardstock, string, picture glue and a few photographs are all they will need. (The photographs can be copies you ran off of the originals if you are afraid of losing them.) Punch holes along the side of the cardstock for them so the string can be put through them and tied to hold the pages together. (Don't put the string in yet.) Now let your child glue the pictures to the pages making sure they allow them to set and then have them write captions for each of the pictures. Now tie it together and they have a gift to give to mom or dad.

Picture frames can be given, while not completely homemade they can be personalized. Buy a plain picture frame and use a hot glue gun to put felt decorations or plastic figures around it. You can put flowers, hearts, rattles or anything else that you can imagine. You can also put there name on the frame using paint or stickers.

Stockings are a firm part of Christmas for my family and personalizing them to give as gifts to new family members is always done. All you need is a stocking and some glitter glue. You can put fabric patches on them to give them a more personal look for the one receiving them.

Some people love candles and they are rather easy to make you can buy a kit and make custom candles or you can recycle candles and make them for those people. Simply purchase some candle wicks and melt down your leftover wax from your old candles. You just need to get something to pour them into, if you aren't using wax left from a self contained candle to make the outside you want to be sure that you make them in something you plan to give away with the candle. When you make them yourself you can layer the colors so they are custom to the person you made them for.

Can you sew? You can make curtains or furniture covers for someone that just moved into a new home and hasn't gotten around to getting everything they need yet.

Take a little time to think about who you have on your list this year and homemade Christmas gift ideas will start to come to you.

Learn more about this author, Laurie Childree.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.