ALT-2 Ten Creative Gift Ideas that Won’t Hurt your Pocket
Keeping Christmas within your budget doesn't have to be as difficult as solving the national debt problem. Creative gifts will not only save your wallet they show friends and family that you put thought into their gift and a personal touch. These creative gifts can be made in advance and altered to suit the recipient.
Memory Books: Memory books are the perfect gift idea for mom, grandma or close friends. Gather photos of the recipient and any family members you want to include in the memory book. Purchase a photo album or other blank journal to use as the memory book. Visit scrapbooking websites to find whimsical or creative cutouts to use in the memory book, such as birthday cake shapes for pages with birthday pictures. Use paper glue or double faced tape to put the pictures into the journal along with the cutouts you chose. Add a brief description of the photo using a fine tipped permanent marker. Personalize the memory book with the recipient's name along with date presented.
Personalized Photo Calendar: Make personalized family photo calendars that have important dates marked, such as family birthdays, anniversaries, and events that are personal to the recipient. Add photos that are also personal to the recipient. Use scrapbooking materials or download scrapbooking cutouts from the Internet to mark the dates, such as cutout candles to mark birthdays or candy canes to mark Christmas holidays.
Sweet Treat: Present your friends or family members with all the makings for a sweet treat. This gift is a yummy treat to be enjoyed anytime. Layer the ingredients to your favorite cookies or brownies in a mason jar. Add the instructions to the jar using a ribbon threaded around the lid and attach a wooden stir spoon to the jar using double-faced tape or a small dab of hot glue on the handle.
Lovin' Spoonfuls: Give the coffee or cocoa drinkers this tasty gift. Purchase plastic spoons in holiday colors if available, if not, white works too. Dip them in melted chocolate and then sprinkle with crushed peppermints. Lay on wax paper to dry. Wrap three or four in wax paper with a pretty ribbon and place inside a pretty coffee mug. Add a sample size coffee or cocoa to the mug and you have a flavorful gift sure to warm the heart.
Family Night: Give a gift for the entire family to enjoy and stretch your budget at the same time. Purchase a basket at your local value store and put one or two free movie rental coupons inside. Add some microwave popcorn and boxed-theater type candy, usually available at your local one price store, top off with a pretty bow and it's Merry Christmas for the whole family.
Personalized Frames: Give family and friends personalized photo frames too display their cherished photos. Purchase inexpensive picture frames and embellish them with items related to the recipient, such as seashells for the beach lover. Buttons, greenery from the floral department and small pinecones make pretty picture frames.
Personal Time: Give the gift of time, your time. Print festive coupons for mom's day off or parent's night out and give them to friends or families who have children. The coupon entitles them to a night out while you babysit the children.
Pasta Perfect: Give the pasta lovers in your family an Italian treat. Purchase a colander to use as the gift basket. Fill a mason jar with shaped pasta and wrap a ribbon around the jar. Fill a second jar with your favorite pasta sauce or use a store-bought one. Put the pasta and sauce inside the colander and wrap with a gift basket wrap and ribbon.
Stationary: Create and print their very own stationary, as unique and personal as they are. Purchase a ream of top quality paper at your local office supply store, one ream of paper will make ten gifts of 50 sheets per gift. Choose a design for recipient's stationary or use a fancy font and the recipient's initials. Using your word processor add the design to the paper and print. Tie with a pretty ribbon and put in a gift box.
Personal Cookbook: Share your family recipes once and for all. Handprint your favorite recipes on index cards and put in an index card box or bind together using ribbon and a hole punched in the corner of the cards. Alternatively, print using a word processing software and bind together with punched holes and raffia.
Creative Christmas gifts can save your wallet and make your holiday brighter and more personal. All it takes is time and your imagination to put together gifts your friends and families will love.
