Help! I know it's not even November yet, so I apologize to those of you who are thinking it's WAY too early to be worrying about this....
This is about the time when I start thinking about the holidays, and even start a little of my Christmas shopping. I like to put time and thought into gifts, so I'm not rushed. (And so I'm not buying everything at once!) Anyway, we started a new tradition on my husband's side of the family. We aren't supposed to buy each other anything, but instead make thoughtful, homeade gifts. Last year was easy because we had this awesome Craft Day at our Ward with several projects that were exactly that-thoughtful and homeade! However, I'm now in a small branch that doesn't do a craft day, and I'm not so good at coming up with ideas on my own!
Some examples of gifts we exchanged last year were:
-I made wooden blocks with sepia photographs on every side for each family member. The blocks stacked on top of each other, and they looked pretty neat!
-My sister in law framed a Proclamation to the Family for each of us, with our own custom borders of photographs of our families
-My sister in law also made one of those fleece sacks with rice and little objects in it, for kids to "search for" the objects during church, etc.
Hopefully that gets the creative juices flowing and PLEASE send your ideas my way!!! :)
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One of are favorite and most used gifts was something my husband's brother gave us. They bought the scripture pictures from the distribution center, the ones that are made of of cardstock and have the story on the back. They then put every picture in sheet protectors and placed them in a binder that had our family's name on it. It has been wonderful for family home evening with small children. We take a picture out each week, read the story and summary, and teach our children about the scriptures with those. There attention span requires a picture every family home evening.
If you sew, you could use Cramster's stocking pattern and make individual stockings with their names on them and then stuff them with fun dollar-store stuff. And/or you could make PJ bottoms because they sew up quickly and families could match. If you don't sew, disregard these suggestions.
A few years ago my husband wrote a poem for each of his siblings and parents. That was really cool. He bound all the poems and each person got a complete set. I'm not that great with poetry, but I did a book of memories (non-poetic) for my mom. You could do one memory for each person and make a book that each family gets with all the memories.
Good luck and make sure you let us know what you end up doing.
This is more of a cheap option..but one year my husband made me a rice sock that I can heat up in the microwave and put on my neck when its sore---I LOVE it! It gets tons of use!!
I like to do stuff with photos. The things you made last year sound really cool.
One year my SIL gave us a binder filled with Christmas stories and such.
My hubby is from a family of 10 kids, most of whom choose not to give out anything to each other, but I like to do at least a little something. I was considering melting chocolate into fun molds this year. Simple, but something.
I have been wanting to check out the Martha Stewart aisle at Michael's...there might be something fun there.
Although I'm not crafty, I love decoupage. You could find some kind of box or something at the craft store and decoupage pictures and symbols that are personal to the recipient. All you need is Mod Podge and one of those spongey type brushes (wooden handle, gray foamy stuff on the end).
Thought of one other...a pretty jar filled with all of the dry ingredients for cookies or soup.
One idea I got from a ward enrichment was to laminate all of the small (about 3x4 inch size) pics of Mormonads, punch a hole in the corner, and put a ring through the hole. It is a great "quiet" type book for kids at church, or you could use it at home. I made one and my 7 month old likes to chew on it.
Another idea I have but haven't done yet is to make a family history type calendar - I want to gather old photos of ancestors and put one for each month of the year. You could do this with current family pictures, too.
We asked my parents in law to give us stuff they made for Christmas this year - my father in law is a blacksmith, so we asked him to make us a dutch oven hook. My sister is a great cook so I would like a collection of her tried and true recipes.
Oh! I totally forgot! The family history calendar reminded me of it. I started making picture calendars for my family a few years ago and now it is a tradition. I collect pictures of the family (new and old) and organize them into twelve months of fun! I then make color copies and bind them with calendar pages and send them out to the family. It's fun too because we include all of the family holidays on it so that we don't forget (which is easy to do as the family gets bigger and bigger). I really like these...they're fun. But...they can get pricey with 12 pages of color copies.
Speaking of Family History, Martha Stewart has a beautiful family tree template. It's not much to look at until you start filling in the names, then it becomes this amazing focal point for any wall. I made one for my MIL a couple years ago...get this: $4 is all it cost!!
FIND IT HERE:
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=3de576ecfd22f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=family%20tree&rsc=ns2006_m3
skipper, my mom made the family tree a few years ago and it is soo cool!
this might be lame but i love getting mix cd's from my brother every year because i love getting new music.
last year, now that the church mags are online, i took apart my ensigns and put pictures on cardstock and made quiet books for my nephews and niece.
For non-sewing: I always buy fleece from Joann's on the day after Thanksgiving (super cheap like $2/yd) and make blankets. Everyone loves them because they are super warm! Just get two pieces (make them the same size), put one on top of the other, cut 3-4" slits every 1-2" and tie the strips together in a knot. Looks great with no sewing! If you do like to sew: I use the fleece to sew simple hats and scarves for family members. You can get patterns right now for $.50-1.00 at Joanns.
For anyone with older toddlers, my sister has her son draw pictures (like of our family with him - stick figures) and she frames them. They are super cute!
To expand a little on Tiffany's suggestion of a rice sock, I've made aroma therapy bags as gifts before (similar to the ones sold in the mall for $30-40). I just use scraps of fabric and make a sack of whatever size or shape I want. I then fill it with flax seed which is suppose to be less likely to burn when microwaved. The flax seed can be scented with any essential oil. Another option is to open a bag of herbal tea, and mix that in with the flax seed. Once you've filled the sack, just sew the last side up!
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