QOTW: 11/16
 

Are you making any homemade gifts this year or have you seen something that you might attempt some time?

I want to create bows this year. I've been looking on pinterest for ideas.

I usually buy gift bags and take the fast, easy route but not this year. We agree that we will shop less (want to stay away from the mall as much as possible) and lots of things we don't want to order online (Canadian on-line shopping kind of sucks) so a fun way to spruce up the gifts will be to try to create prettier packaging.

I've been saving small boxes to use for some of the gifts and will try my hand at homemade bows. No harm done if I fail at it, it'll be fun to try.

Not really a gift, but I want to make a gingerbread house from scratch. I just received the cutters in the mail. I do at least one every year with my girls, but it is usually an already assembled one from the store which doesn't taste the best. I think that it will be the centerpiece for our Christmas dinner. It's just the four of us this year, so I want to make it a little fun.

Our list of people to exchange gifts with is pretty small. I make calendars for the extended family, so I'm still doing that this year. My parents will also get enlargements of the family photos we took this fall, but that's all I'm doing (purchased or homemade) for anyone outside our household. Hanukkah isn't as big a gift-giving holiday as Christmas is--at least in my family, it's much more about the kids.

Within our household, I'm sewing Ben a floor pillow with Rubik's cube fabric I found online. The kids need more masks, so I may or may not make those and call them Hanukkah presents one night. That's probably it this year. I'm trying to catch up on scrapping while we're home so much, so I don't want to take on too many other projects.

I make calendars for my parents & inlaws, but that's it, really. I'm not a very good gift-giver.

I always say I'm going to and then I end up just buying something.

I make calendars for my mom and MIL. I also did an altered copy of one of recent vacas into a book for my MIL and FIL...since they were with us. <3

Nope. I am not a maker of things with my hands. This is why I digitally scrapbook (vs. paper scrapbook) and cook vs. bake. :D

My mother is the queen of handmade gifts. She makes at least one each year for my sister & me. She has made Christmas-related canvases using my kids' handprints/footprints, other Christmas decor, a Christmas-decorated miniature wooden house (it was a blank white diorama-style house to start with and she cut out stockings from scrap paper, used twine to hang them up on the fireplace she made, etc.), a family recipe album, ornaments, and a host of other things, too. She also is constantly baking cookies all December long to give away to people and then we have a cookie buffet with 4-5 different kinds on Christmas morning between presents and lunch. :wub:

I like the idea and have done it in the past, but I just don't think I'll have the bandwidth to do it. I would love to see pictures of what people end up doing!

I have made some in the past; this year it's only the calendar for my Mom. I love the gingerbread house idea. I found a Dr. Who gingerbread Tardis on Pinterest I may try. My family would love it.

Haven't even thought about gifts of any kind yet

I have never made homemade gifts...I did do a lot of baking and that was appreciated but I do not do that anymore either :)

I haven't been able to find an idea for anything that people would actually USE. I have spent a lot of years making homemade gifts and I always feel like, while cute, they are just things that take up space. I don't want my gifts to become clutter. Thus why I don't craft for myself anymore either. I like the idea of it, but unless I come up with an idea that will be practical, useful, easy to mail and create no clutter (and be something they don't already have) then I won't.

calendars as I do every year... and this year our advent book we are doing has lots of crafts in it... so that will be interesting as I'm horrible at makign this stuff come to light.

I dont think I've ever made gifts. Every other year when we visit my family (DH's family isn't really into Christmas cookies) I bake and decorate sugar cookies. It's a recipe I found 25 years ago. Even though we won't be traveling, I am still going to make a small batch. I am blessed to be working, but we are "slammed" and I don't/won'thave the energy for much else.