<p>Hi all, </p>
<p>Caveat: I love home-made gifts, definitely on the Martha Stewart level, vs. country-ish or anything like that. I really love making holiday gifts for friends and family. This year, with a friend who recently lost her husband, I’m going to make the cookie mix-in-a-jar gift for friends (though probably in a plastic bag housed in a cute tin). Did this a couple of years ago, and people liked them. Good cookies too!</p>
<p>Anyone making anything cool for gifts this year?</p>
<p>D2 is making her usual truffles. She makes lovely ones and tries to mix it up every year. My mother is an amazing baker who has always been known for her hundreds of dozens of dozens of varieties of cookies. She isn’t able to bake anymore, so I’ll be doing that and giving some gifts of cookies.</p>
<p>S2 is busy making origami earrings.</p>
<p>Out of a thin sheet of silver, mathmom? I saw some on a website.</p>
<p>D1 and D2 make the hot chocolate cones for their friends…the ones that look like ice cream cones. Very cute.</p>
<p>Son received a glass mug that was hand decorated in school colors.</p>
<p>Not making any cool gifts-Martha Stewart I am not-but I did just donate to the No Freeze Shelter in my Mom’s hometown for her 75th birthday instead of a gift she didn’t need. The people who were already living on the edge are really on the edge now. I was at Target yesterday and the clerks were actually dusting the merchandise!
For anyone that isn’t handy and has the means, I think donations are a good option.</p>
<p>I love homemade gifts too. I am giving copies of some old photos that I have had scanned and copied. I’ve been collecting cheap mats, frames and the such all year, so am ready to go.</p>
<p>For the boys, I’ll give one nice sized gift, and the rest is dollar shop and severely discounted stuff. I’ve been collecting stuff for H’s gift all year. I would have ordinarily give as I found, but have stashed instead. Am redoing his office and have found give aways, cast aways and bargains in furniture which I will mix with some Ikea pieces and what we already have. </p>
<p>The dollar shops ,Christmas Tree SHop, Ikea, and Good Will have been getting my money this year for gifts. Along with very good sales.</p>
<p>No - he used to make them out of traditional origami paper, which you had to cut into quarters, but lately he’s been doing them from 2"x2" collection from this site: [url=<a href=“Under Construction”>Under Construction]Origami</a> Paper Store<a href=“It’s%20the%20sold%20out%20tie-died%20look%20box%20on%20the%20left.”>/url</a> He’s been dipping the cranes in an epoxy mix which makes them look like they are made out of porcelain. They are quite professional looking! He’s also done some with the cellophane paper further down the page. I like it alot, but it’s more difficult to fold. I did buy him some gold and silver washi paper recently and I hope he’ll make some from that too. I’m selling the stuff for him at a co-op gallery I belong to.</p>
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<p>ebeeee, I was in a department store to buy some winter clothes for my younger son about 2 weeks ago. They were already deeply discounting. To me, they were after Christmas prices at the end of October!</p>
<p>mathmom, would you post the ingredients and directions for the epoxy mix, please? Sounds like it creates a really great effect.</p>
<p>I planted way too many hot peppers this year, so I made hot pepper relish, which I canned. The relish is in really pretty jars and I’m going to cover them with fancy fabric and give them as presents along with other “hot” items–haven’t figured out what yet. </p>
<p>Dh is also considering making plum pudding. We’ve got a recipe that his grandmother used and have made the puddings before. Several friends said they thought they would hate plum pudding, but said they were surprised at how good this one was.</p>
<p>northminnesota - do you have a recipe/directions you can share with me. I’ve wanted to make these since I saw some in a Cracker Barrel a couple of years ago, but could not find any instructions. The ones I saw had crushed up candy canes on top so you could have mint hot chocolate.</p>
<p>The extended family had been receiving our note about donations to a charity to help families. We’ve been doing this for about 10 years and will continue this year.</p>
<p>For our immediate family…gifts tend to be “needs” wrapped up. Both kids will get gift cards to the grocery stores where they buy their food. Both will get Barnes and Noble cards because both are still buying college texts. Both will get new pj’s and underwear. DH and I get a mutual gift “for the house” that both of us like. This year it will be getting our central vac fixed. </p>
<p>We don’t need “stuff”. We are trying to get rid of stuff.</p>
<p>The epoxy mix is available in craftstores. It’s two bottles you mix together - one is the resin the other is the hardener. We first discovered it to make fake water for war game models. The brand we’ve used is Envirotex, there’s another called Easycast, but I suspect they are all similar.</p>
<p>The year my son was born, we were broke. So broke. For the holidays, I bought a stack of paper, three hole punched it and tied the pages together with yarn. Then I photocopied pages from a calender I bought for the months and taped one 4x6 photo of the baby with a draw in boarder for the picture part of each month.</p>
<p>Everyone said they loved it but I had no idea how much until I happily declared several years later that I had saved enough money to do “proper” gifts. The response, it was not good. Turns out everyone had been saving them over the years and loved having them. If I had to buy them gifts, fine, but they wanted me to know how very much they looked forward to their calenders, how much they enjoyed them through out the year and so on. It was quite funny!</p>
<p>Technology has improved and so has my budget, so making the calendars is a snap now. Be sure to check out on-line and at your local photo shop what kind of gifts can be made with pictures. They are always a hit. </p>
<p>Another gift that was really well recieved was the year I knit scarves, placed a scarf in a box with a card that said, “In honor of ___” and took a picture of it before I put the top on and donated the scarf. I put the photograph in with a card and wrote a little note about how they had inspired me to pass along kindness in their honor.</p>
<p>Mathmom - Those earrings sound beautiful. I would love to be a recipient on that list!</p>
<p>When D was still in HS I made all of her teachers candied pecans every year. It was fairly simple and H’s then employer sent us a huge box of shelled pecans every Thanksgiving so it was inexpensive too. Everyone enjoyed them. I love edible gifts.</p>
<p>I’ve always wished I could sew/knit/crochet or something. I’m afraid I have <em>very</em> little talent in those areas.</p>
<p>I love edible gifts too–a friend makes the spiced pecans every year, and I look forward to them. I also make a sweet whipped cream bread (in the shape of wreaths) that I give to people.</p>
<p>There’s always the classic lump of coal – in this economy, the gift of heating fuel might actually be appreciated! :-)</p>
<p>We did the calendars for years - we started when we were living in Germany and had lots of silly photos of the two of us sightseeing and then the tradition morphed into cute pictures of the kids. The parents seemed to like them very much. They started off with glued photos, but eventually we did them with computers and digital photos.</p>
<p>I never mind getting edible gifts. I think they work well with parents who tend to have plenty of stuff.</p>