Homemade Gift Ideas, Part 3

Welcome to another exciting craft post! Here you can find great personal gifting ideas for any time of the year. 🙂

Part One can be found HERE, in which I talk about making Scented Sachets, Scented Candles, Bubble Bath, Bath Salts, and Herb Pillows, and give you a look at a couple of DIY Tote Bags!

Part Two can be found HERE, in which I talk about personalizing clothing and tote bags with Iron On Transfers and making Perfume, Body Spray, Lotion, Sugar/Salt Scrub, and my favorite, DIY Snowglobes!

Here are a few more ideas of things you can make for friends and family and yourself!

*All of these ingredients and supplies can be found at any craft store, garden store, health food store, or online.

Hand Cream/Body Butter
This is a great alternative to making lotion because, let’s face it, sometimes the lotion doesn’t come out right. This picture was taken right after I poured it into the container, so it looks more liquidy than it really is. Do note, it will thicken up over a couple of days, so the end consistency of this recipe is NOT fit for a pump bottle.  (Makes 7 – 8 oz containers)

Supplies:
-Avocado/Almond/Macadamia Oil (24 oz)
-Aloe Vera Gel (24 oz)
-Shea/Mango/Avocado Butter (8 oz)
-Beeswax (4oz)
-Emulsifying Wax (8tsp)
-Vitamin E Oil (1/4oz)
-Grapeseed Extract (15 drops)
-Essential Oils/Fragrance (20 drops per container)
-Opt. Mica or Food Grade Coloring (just a bit)
-Whisk

Directions
-Melt butters and waxes in a heat-friendly container (i.e. NOT plastic). Remove from Heat, Add Oils, and Stir. Add Aloe and Whisk. Freeze for 15 minutes or refrigerate for an hour. Add Grapeseed Extract (acts as a perservative), Essential Oils, and optional coloring. Whisk until well mixed. Put into containers. Can also stir fragrance and coloring into individual jars to personalize the scents and colors. 🙂

Minature Fairy/Gypsy Garden
Really cute idea for people who love plants with the added bonus of being ridiculously easy to care for.

Supplies:
– Large Bowl & Drip Pan (you can pick almost anything, but note if it doesn’t already have holes on the bottom, you need to be careful of how much water you put in there or it needs to be made out of a material like clay or hard plastic so that you can drill holes into the bottom yourself.)
– Potting Soil
– Small/Miniature Plants (like cactus, ferns, flowers, etc)
– Opt. Moss (you can get damp moss, dried moss, or potted moss) – the damp & potted moss should root into the soil and the dried will just sit on top of it)
– Opt. Small River Rocks
– Opt. Accents (like tiny animals and furniture)

Directions:
Pretty self-explanatory. Fill bowl with soil. Plant foliage. Decorate. Water.
*I do recommend you do this a week or two before you gift it to give the plants time to root. And if you don’t have a green thumb, seriously, do NOT worry. These tiny house plants are so easy to take care of; they only need enough water to dampened the soil.

*IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: Do pay attention to the kind of plants you’re getting. For example, don’t mix a cactus with a fern. They are both low maintenance, but cactus plants need MUCH less water than a fern. I got a cactus-like plant and put it in the same pot as my ferns. Um, no. I drowned the cactus. I lost some of the moss in the front as well (though the moss in the back looks gorgeous!) so I replaced both of those things with more ferns. No more problems. ^_^

Jewelry
Supplies: Bracelets
-Flexible Cord/Wire (It should be in the jewelry-making section of the craft store.)
-Beads
-Opt. Clasps

Supplies: Earrings
-I don’t know what they’re called, but they look like little earring hooks
-Decorative Pieces

Supplies: Necklaces
-Cord/Chain
-Pendants/Decorative Pieces
-Opt. Clasps

Directions 
-This is pretty self-explanatory, I think. For the bracelets, you cut the cord to the length you want – leaving yourself a little extra room on the ends if you’re not using clasps, string the beads on there in the pattern you want, and tie it in a knot at the end or glue on the clasps. The bead pieces will make the knot and clasp ends fairly inconspicuous. For the earrings, there are so many different styles and pieces that you can get, so how you put it together depends on what you want them to look like. And for the necklace, it’s just a matter of stringing the bling on the chain or cord of choice and securing the ends.

Lip Balm
There are a lot of different recipes and ways to make it, but this is what I did.

Supplies (this recipe makes 2 small tubes or one 1/2 oz container)
-Beeswax (1 tsp)
-Almond Oil (1.5 tsp)
-Shea Butter (2 tsp)
-Vitamin E Oil (3 drops)
-Flavor (10 to 20 drops of flavor (per container) – depending on how strong you want it to be – you’ll want to use more of flavors like vanilla and less of things like peppermint oil)
-Opt. Food Coloring or Mica
-Containers
-Labels (I didn’t label mine as I just made it for myself)

Directions
-Melt wax. Add Shea Butter and Melt. Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir until mixed. Pour into containers. Let sit for one hour before using.
(Note: This will start solidifying right away so pour quickly. Don’t worry about spilling. The wax/shea butter combination is really easy to wipe off once it’s solid.)

I know I show a picture with a tub container, and while you can pour this into whatever you want, this recipe comes out quite stiff and probably works best with a tube.

*Side Note: They make white beeswax, but if you use yellow beeswax, it can have a rather strong “wax” smell, so keep that in mind when deciding how much flavor to use. You can also vary the recipe by using less beeswax and more shea butter to soften the texture and give it less waxy swag.

Stuffed Animals
Yep! You can make your own stuffed animals.
– I’m not going to go into detail here because I haven’t done this, but what you can do is only limited by your skill level. They make kits where all you have to do is stuff, glue, and tie up the pre-stitched side, but it you got it like that, you can make one from SCRATCH! In which case you would need eyes, stuffing, thread, craft glue, fuzzy fabric, and perhaps some optional ribbon to make a bow tie? Sounds like fun. ^_^

Beaded Bookmarks
Hobby Lobby and Michaels JoAnn’s Fabric Store sell these little jewelry pieces that make for great additions to the ends of bookmarks.

Supplies:
– Cord or Flexible Wire (or really anything you can work with)
– Decorative Pieces (beads, feathers, accents)
– Opt. Craft Glue (for securing the ends)

Directions
-You make this the same way you would make a bracelet or earrings, only you don’t tie the ends together. You can also make traditional flat bookmarks with pictures or by drawing them yourself on a heavy weight stationary paper.