Handmade Christmas Gifts

I’ve been making lists of things that would possibly make good gifts and there are three or four areas that could work:

soft crafts like knitting and sewing
food crafts
non food crafts
jewellery (if I can be bothered but probably not)

Knitting little things doesn’t take long. Knitting big things would take too long for me if I wanted to do other stuff as well.

Sewing things like handbags, wallets and even things like lingerie could be nice gifts

Food crafts well anything edible and nicely packaged I think is well appreciated by most people, I think all of us could do something in that direction, tray bake like F said, or what Jersey mentioned with the jars. IKEA sell lots of those jars and they’re very cheap, different sizes too. Cupcakes, shortbread, biscotti, fudge, homemade chocolates, fruitcake (christmas cake) cookies, jams, pickles, mince pies etc. Most of these are pretty simple to make but can look really good as presents.

Non food crafts – this is what I was making a list of at the weekend from a few books that I have – body creams and oils, bath bombs <- they are really simple to make and look really nice, stuff like that anyway.

It’s funny but I’ve given my family a lot of presents over the years but the two that they liked the most were last year’s when I gave them a Green & Black’s chocolate hamper, and they said that they were just talking about the other hamper I gave them a few years back and were wishing someone would do that again. That one, was one I made up myself and it was all mexican food items and tequila, put in a big box. They really loved that one. Neither is homemade as such but it would be easy to put together a few homemade items in a hamper or a box, or a few nice things in jars just to make it look more special.

My BIL also loves this Australian Christmas cake that I make sometimes, and he does ask for it every year or even for his birthday. Then he hides it away in a cupboard and doesn’t give it to anyone lol. I haven’t made it for a while because I get caught up with the commercialism of Christmas and think I should be spending $$$ on things from shops, but I should really make it for him this year and I know he’ll be happy.