Making Your Own Gifts

Giving gifts makes you feel good, but you’ll feel even better if you made those gifts yourself. The recipient will appreciate the time and thoughtfulness that you put into it and the one-of-a-kind aspect of the item.

Creating your own gifts can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it. Here are several simple do-it-yourself gift ideas that can be adapted for almost any occasion.

Gift Baskets

You don’t have to buy a prepackaged gift basket at the store. Spending the time to personally choose what goes into a basket shows that you’ve given the gift a lot of care and thought. Baskets can be picked up at import stores like Pier 1 or Cost Plus World Market. Gifters on a budget can hit their local thrift stores for an affordable selection. Pick a theme (like chocolate, final exams survival tools or birthday party favors) and have fun picking out or making small items that make sense together. Keep in mind that you don’t literally need a basket. You can also use interesting boxes, buckets, flower pots or any other container you can find.

T-Shirts

A custom tee is a cool idea that can be approached in a lot of different ways. You can explore the world of silkscreening, buy fabric paint at the local hobby store, cut out your own shirt stencils or go retro by making iron-on t-shirt transfers with your computer and printer. Custom printed onesies are a great idea for baby showers. A site like CafePress will make shirts for you out of any original design you upload.

Food

This is something we can all agree on: Edible items make great gifts. There are the old standbys like cookies and cakes, but you can get more creative with the concept. Make up a cookie or muffin mix and put the dry ingredients together in a jar along with instructions for the recipient to bake their own at home. Flavored vinegars in exotic bottles taste good and look impressive. Scottish shortbread is simple to make, but keeps well. Spend a little extra time in packaging your food gifts in attractive boxes and wrappers to elevate them above the usual cookies on a plate. On a related note, you can gather your “secret” family recipes together, print them out in an attractive format, and bind them into a personalized cookbook to give for the holidays.

Craft Dot Com

The Internet is your friend when you’re stumped about what gifts to make or need some tips on how to get the glitter to stay on the paper. Check out these crafting sites for projects and advice.

• CRAFT – Don’t miss the blog on this site. The photographs in the project section are large and helpful when it comes to tackling things yourself.
• Craftster – Part social network, part project instructions and part DIY showoff showcase, Craftster is a hip hangout for the make-it-yourself crowd. The forums are a great place to connect with other crafters.
• DIY Network – The companion Web site for the cable channel, DIY Network has a huge variety of projects ranging from woodworking to beading and scrapbooking. How-to videos are particularly helpful for some of the trickier projects.
• Instructables – There are a lot of tech-related projects here, but also a good helping of crafty projects ranging from braiding your own bracelets to knitting tea cozies.
• Knitty – You can tell by the name who this site is geared for. Knitters can find patterns and read articles that get into the nitty-gritty of knitting.