DIY and Handmade Christmas Gift Ideas
It can be daunting and expensive buying everybody’s gifts, so we’ve put together a list of easy homemade Christmas gift ideas anyone can make. Not only can you save some money at Christmas, but you’ve got a fun and wholesome crafting activity that shows you’ve put thought into your presents.
The idea of making homemade Christmas gifts always seems great, until you find yourself scrolling through a complicated list of instructions and materials you’ll need.
Our Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas
Our easy homemade Christmas gift ideas are simple and fun to put together. The individual materials or items you’ll need aren’t expensive but will show people you’ve really made an effort on their present!
Homemade Activity Christmas Gift Ideas
These homemade Christmas gifts can suit any budget and be as simple or elaborate as you want! All you need to do to make this Christmas present is decide on an activity and put together a mini-kit for them to use and enjoy.
Include a note or letter to make it extra special.
Cosy Book Reading Kit
Buy a new book or second-hand book from a charity shop that you think they’ll love. Include a fancy instant coffee or hot chocolate drink they wouldn’t normally buy for themselves.
Maybe include some biscuits or sweets too! If you buy a second-hand book this gift can be really affordable but shows a lot of love.
Relaxing Bath Kit
Buy a bath bomb, a cocktail in a can, a candle and a face mask. Write a note telling them to relax and pamper themselves, and recommend a podcast or album you think they’d love.
Movie Night Kit
Include popcorn, fluffy socks and a cocktail or beer. You could make a homemade ticket for this one for a special extra touch! Or, include an invitation with a time and date for your movie night.
Shower Kit
Buy a fun shower cap and fill it with a body scrub (try out homemade body scrub below!), sponge or loofah and nice smelling shower gel.
Kitchen Kit
Gift them some oven gloves and fill it with spices and a spatula or wooden spoon. You can fill the oven gloves with anything kitchen related, try and match it to their personality.
For example, if they’re a baker fill the oven gloves with cookie cutters, vanilla essence, piping bags and a cake leveller.
Homemade Beauty Products for Christmas
Natural, chemical-free beauty products are really popular homemade gifts at the moment. The beauty and skincare industry is leaning toward fewer, more natural ingredients.
This is great, but cosmetic companies are charging high prices for products with easily found natural ingredients. Making your own saves you money and gives the same result!
Coffee Scrub
Make your own versions out of coffee grounds, new or used. We like to scoop out used coffee pods and dry them out in the oven. Mix the dry coffee grounds with coconut oil and customise with vanilla, almond essence, cinnamon, Christmas spices or brown sugar.
Coarse coffee grounds can tear the delicate skin on your face so make sure you tell them it’s a body scrub.
Pampering Foot Scrub
Mix together some granulated sugar, coconut oil (warmed to be pourable) and some peppermint oil or extract. Put the combined mixture into a jar and voila! A treat for the feet.
Facial Mask or Exfoliator
Make a facemask and put in a cute jar with a label and ribbon tied around the lid. This can be as simple or complex as you want. A nice two-ingredient face mask and exfoliator recipe just involves blitzing some oats to a powder and adding into honey!
Some recipes ask for essential oils or more obscure products, but there are plenty of homemade beauty gifts that can be made from storecupboard ingredients.
Room Spray or Pillow Spray
Mix together 10 drops of lavender essential oil, 2 tbsp of witch hazel or vodka, and 6 tbsp of water, then adjust as necessary.
Pour the mixture into a spray bottle using a funnel. We highly recommend this bottle which comes with:
- Amber glass spray bottle x 3
- Black mist sprayer x 6
- Funnel x 1
- Dropper x 1
- Label x 6
The lavender is great for people who struggle with sleeping. You can make any kind of linen or room spray by customising the oils you use. Play around with different combinations!
Crafty and Creative Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas
Are you looking for a chance to get crafty with your homemade Christmas present ideas?
These gift ideas will hopefully provide you with some great Christmas presents, or inspire you to make something arty.
Photo Frame With a Memorable or Happy Photo In It
Grandparents love this one. It’s a simple gesture that they will treasure, and a picture tells a thousand words. Get that smug pride of your gift going on display in the middle of the mantlepiece. For extra brownie points, decorate your frame with intricate details using an ink pen, or with acrylic paints.
Get Crafty With a Photo Frame
Fill a picture frame with pressed flowers or paint a simple watercolour design to match their home’s colour scheme and design.
Simple watercolours or pressed flowers can look really premium. If you tie in the colours with their front room or bedroom pressed flowers and watercolour can look very stylish. This is a great one to do with kids for your relatives.
Get Creative With Shoes
Buy some cheap wellies or Converse and paint them. Acrylic paint works best but a bit of paint flaking is unavoidable with flexing rubber, so try to keep the designs on the parts of the boot that don’t move. If your Welly boots will be used as plant pots then this won’t matter!
You can really get creative with this one – try painting daisies, rainbows, animals, fish, clouds, food… the list is endless! These will be the perfect fashion statement for a boxing day walk.
For other homemade Christmas crafting ideas, take a look at these posts:
- How To Make A Christmas Wreath In 4 Simple Steps
- How To Make A Christmas Stocking In 8 Simple Steps
- Christmas Candy Cane: Ultimate Guide
- Christmas Crackers: The Ultimate Guide
Homemade Christmas Food Gifts in a Jar
This is a new homemade gift craze that is fun, cute and makes baking easy for the receiver. All you have to do is layer the dry ingredients of a recipe in a jar and write the recipe and other ingredients on a gift tag.
Food more food gift ideas, read our article on 17 Best Food Gifts for Christmas: Amazing Ideas.
P.S. You can save money by making gift tags out of old Christmas cards. Read more about how to do this and our other money saving Christmas hacks in our post here.
Cookies
Layer the ingredients for cookies in a jar, (not the eggs or butter!), and tie a ribbon on top. These are our favourite as you can add anything you want to cookies.
Get colourful with smarties or m&m’s, or keep it classic with chocolate chunks. We like making a trio of these cookie jars with different additions like nuts, chocolate or cinnamon raisin.
Hot Chocolate
Fill a jar with hot chocolate powder and marshmallows and maybe include a mug and can of squirty cream. You could even add a packet of biscuits or a gingerbread man, or some crushed up candy canes! Yum!
Brownies
The same method as cookie jars applies for brownies. Just layer the dry ingredients and add instructions and a list of the wet ingredients they will need.
It’s good to use a recipe that has cocoa powder rather than melted chocolate, as the contrast between the cocoa powder, flour and sugar make this one look great. Play around with toppings or extra flavours in your brownies, like chocolate chips or walnuts.
Final Thoughts on Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas
We hope this list has given you some inspiration for easy homemade Christmas gift ideas anyone can make. The great thing about homemade Christmas gifts is they can be personalised to match the person who the gift is for.
Putting in a little bit of extra effort into a gift shows that you’ve really thought about the present rather than just picking something up off the shelves.
For more homemade gift ideas, we love this post by The Spruce.
Related Christmas Gift Idea Articles:
- 17 Best Food Gifts for Christmas: Amazing Ideas
- 22 Best Quirky Baking Gifts For The Star Baker In Your Life
- 150 Best Stocking Filler Ideas For All Ages This Year
- The Best Christmas Hampers On Amazon
- The Best Christmas Gifts For Couples Who Have Everything
- Best Money Saving Hacks You Need This Christmas
