5 Eco-friendly Holiday Gift Ideas for Your Family and Friends

Black Friday is right around the corner and the beginning of the holiday season is about to start. This year, consider avoiding the holiday crowds and department store offers. Resist the temptation and consider making any of the following five eco-friendly holiday gifts for your family and friends.

1) Homemade Dinners
Consider offering to cook homemade dinners for your family and friends throughout the year. You can formalized this gift by creating a homemade dinner certificate highlighting when you plan to deliver your homemade dinner and the anticipated menu. This is a great gift idea for hard working relatives who do not have the time or energy to cook after a long day of work.

2) Scrapbooks
Instead of buying expensive scrapbooks from crafts stores, you can create your own book using your child's old school artwork or homework as the background pages. When you overlay photos of your family members on these pages, they create a very sentimental and practical gift to family members and close friends.

3) Homemade bookmarks
You can also use your child's old artwork or homework as bookmarks. Avoid using plastic laminates on these homemade bookmarks.

4) Homemade fashion design kit
Do you have a young relative or child who is an aspiring fashion designer? You can gather old t-shirts and bundle them up with a nice set of design supplies (pair of scissors, needles, zippers, buttons and spools of thread) and give them the homemade kit with a nice handwritten note suggesting that they create their own purse, pencil case or any other simple sewing project. Better yet, if you are an expert at sewing, you can also offer sewing lessons with this gift as well.

5) Handmade knitted belts
Buy eco-friendly recycled yarn and knit your loved ones a belt. Knitting a belt takes half of the time and effort compared to knitting a scarf. Also, knitted belts are a creative fashion statement that can be worn even when it is not frosty and cold outside.

These are just some holiday gift ideas. As you begin the above projects, you will be inspired to make your own eco-friendly gifts. Also, share these gift ideas with your loved ones and let them know that you are interested in receiving any of the above as gifts this year.