Tuesday

{Last Minute HomeSpun Christmas Gifts}



If you've waited until the last minute to finish up your Christmas shopping or you forgot about Great Aunt Edna, Homespun Christmas Gifts are still a great choice. 

Here are a few gifts that are easy to put together, but still show your thoughtful, albeit, tardy heart:

The gift of you
Don't forget the best gift you can give to those you love: you.  Your time and attention are valuable to those you love. Create a coupon book, like this one.  Or make a commitment to a loved one to write more, be healthier, complain less. Sometimes we spent oodles of money and countless hours shopping, when all our family wants is time.  With you.

The gift of food
We tackled many of our teacher gifts in our kitchen. It was also part of our Advent Calendar, so I multi-tasked and got my kids involved.  If you don't have time to bake, buy something like chocolate covered cherries and create your own unique gift wrapping with scrapbook paper and small jewelry boxes:


I've been buying mason jars for the past few months. (I found them at Hobby Lobby for less than $1 each). I grabbed some leftover Christmas scrap booking paper from my stash, bought some tags from the craft store and festive wax baking paper.

I cut circles for the mason jar lid:

And I cut the wax baking paper in circles:


Used cookie mix from a box (shoot me) and added Andes Mint Chips to give them a gourmet flare:


I used ribbon to tie the tag around the neck of the jar, layered gooey cookies and baking paper to create this:

I found these fun felt gift bags at The Dollar Spot at Target and slipped the jar into them:



The gift of sentimentality 
My favorite gift to give and receive is the thoughtful kind. I love invoking special feelings of love and remembrance. Photographs, memory books, and letters are such special gifts. They have lost their place of priority in our busy electronic world. If you want to really bless someone in your life, give a sentimental gift. It's always a winner!

The gift of paper
I discovered this amazing site in search of Advent activities for my. calendar. Boy, was it a hit! And it's entirely free...you just need household supplies like paper, paperclips and a printer (color is even better). It's called The ToyMaker.  If you need a last minute gift, fire up your printer and print a slew of activities. The best gifts don't always cost money!

My kids spent HOURS playing with their whirleycopter. And over the Christmas break, my kids have an extensive list of things to print.


Of course, they had the perfect target:

10 comments:

Dawn @ simply transparent said...

Great ideas!

I bake bread ..zuchcinni kind as a last minute ideal..I like the advent source..thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

Wonderful ideas! Those jars of cookies turned out so cute! I did not know there was festive wax baking paper - where have I been??

Nancy M. said...

That picture is so funny! I love the felt gift bags you found. What a great idea to add the mints to the cookie mix.

Unknown said...

I love the ToyMaker :)

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more - kids LOVE those kinds of things. :)

megan said...

Thank you for sharing your gift ideas!!
Merry Christmas and God Bless!!
Megan

Anonymous said...

Oh, i LOVE that website. My daughters will too. I didn't even know there was such a thing as patterned wax paper. That's good to know.
I just mailed my mom a care package of baked goodies and I'm going to be making some more today for some friends. Baking is definitely a good way to show you care. :)

Juice said...

I love the presentation of the cookies! Where can you find the festive wax paper? Michaels?

Kristen said...

Yes, the patterned wax paper came from Michael's! Any place that sales the Martha Stewart line should have it.

Darla said...

LOVE the cookie idea (and the gourmet flare).

Snorting at the target. Bwahhahaha