I’ve loved making and giving homemade gifts since I was little.  As you may have guessed, my favorite medium was always paint, but I have made a lot of other things over the years, as I learned new crafts. Homemade gifts are not flashy or trendy, but they are meaningful, thoughtful, and show that time was put into a gift, which feels like a rarity in this age of one-click shopping.

I have shared loads of projects on this blog over the years, so I thought I would gather a few that make wonderful gifts.

customized notebook

A couple of years ago, I shared how I customize inexpensive (or just boring) notebooks and sketchbooks with fabrics, papers, and ribbons.  While that’s a perfect project for creative play, it’s also great to make for someone as a gift.  The best part is you can select elements that are perfectly suited to the recipient.  Of course, this can extend to any kind of book including recipe books, gardening journals, planners, etc.  You can find my tutorial showing how to customize a book HERE.  

salt dough ornaments & keepsakes

I am just going to keep beating the salt dough drum!  It is so easy to make and you can do so many things with it.  Molded ornaments make lovely handmade gifts, so you can simply do that, but here are a few more ideas for salt dough gifts…

Make a handprint of a child to gift to their parent or grandparent.  (This would be a fun grandparent project to do with grandkids.)

Press a monogram, an address, a significant date, the name of a pet, etc. with letter stamps.

Make some mini bread loaves and baked goods for a child’s dollhouse.  (I still have some from my childhood dollhouse!)

You can find salt dough recipes, tips, and favorite molds HERE.

Crochet Potholders & Dishcloths

If you want to learn to crochet (or perhaps dust off your crochet hooks), I have shared two projects for beginners that make practical gifts for just about anyone on your list – potholders and dishcloths.  Even if you’re just learning, I am pretty confident you can make something gift-worthy by the time Christmas rolls around.  You can find the potholder pattern HERE and a dishcloth pattern HERE.

Cross-stitched Tea Towel

I went through a cross-stitch phase a few years ago and, as I was looking through old projects, this one stood out as an easy handmade gift.  There are tea towels that are made for cross-stitch projects, but I used unembellished, antique linen towels.  The weave on many old linen pieces made for daily use is big enough that it can be a pretty reliable guide.  Cross-stitch a tea towel, pillow, or set of napkins with a monogram, initial, name, date, place, or even a poem or saying.  You can find a few patterns HERE.

If you’re feeling a bit more ambitious, I’ve included my video series and pattern showing how to knit Selbu Mittens.  I’ve given several pairs as gifts because they are so fun to make.  When I’ve talked to other people about color work, they assume it’s much easier to knit with one color, but I have found that it’s actually easier to keep track of where I am in a pattern if I’m knitting a pattern with two colors.  If you’re comfortable with knitting, it’s a project that’s easier than it looks.  You can start with Selbu Mitten Tutorial Part One.

framed embroidery

Sticking with needles, I wanted to include the idea of a framed piece of embroidery.  I used to think embroidery had to be a complicated, multi-month project that required loads of patience.  That is true of some embroidery projects, but you can also make simple embroidery projects that are relatively quick, freeform, and just as beautiful.  I made some embroidery a few years ago, following a stamped piece of linen as a guide and I love how it turned out.  (I stamped it with a linocut block I carved.)  You can learn more in my post about the embroidery workbook I made.

framed herbarium page

If you want a super easy project, try pressing flowers, herbs, and other plants that might be meaningful to the recipient.  I know most gardens are past their prime (so this is a good gift idea to bookmark for next year), but you can always purchase something off-season from a florist or grocery store.  Just press the plant, mount it on a nice piece of paper, label it, and put it in a frame.  I shared how to press and mount flowers HERE

This is a season of buying things.  We all shop for gifts, pick up deals while they are on sale, and spend money on decor and food for special holiday events.  It’s a month where it’s easy to get sucked into consumerism.  I’ve learned from personal experience and have read it in enough places to know that I’m not alone in feeling this way – making things, being creative and productive, is the perfect antidote to consumption.  You change from being a consumer to being a creator, and it feels really good.

If you get in any kind of holiday funk or you’re feeling stressed out, make something.  Make something for someone else.

Make something because making things is a gift for both the recipient and the maker.