Handmade Gifts People Really Want

If you have ever gotten a handmade gift basket you have felt the humdrum and mixed feelings. Sweet Aunt Betty took the time to bake you those cookies, and most likely they are delicious, however, how many other baskets, plates and trays of cookies have you gotten and baked this year? How about the shower gels and lotions that you have re-gifted and re-gifted or stacked for emergencies in your bathroom cupboards? Lets face it, someone's got to shake it up a bit.

I will tell you how to make something different, something new.

Wind chimes are very easily fashioned out of seashells, silverware and other household items. If the recipient is an avid golfer, use golf balls and tees. Use old keys and ribbons for an antique collector. The idea is to find and collect things that the recipient would treasure and string them together on several strands. Attach them all to hang from the largest and you have made a heartfelt gift that probably is not already in their collection of gifts.

Walmart has a wonderful site for personalized photo gifts. You can make calenders and books. They offer blankets and mouse pads. It is a snap to upload your pictures, add a caption and arrange a gift for your friend or relative. The books are especially exciting. You can take photographs of your friends' pet and create a story using the captions, have their dog tell jokes on each page. There are so many possibilities. Most of the items are very affordable and are received rather quickly. You have a homemade gift with the least possible effort in no time at all.

Make a recipe book filled with all of your extended family's recipes. Call up all of your relatives and ask them to email you a recipe. Or call your oldest family member and ask them to let you use their best recipes. Even if the receiver is not a great cook, they will enjoy looking through and reading the contributions. This gift has heirloom potential. You can print them off and use a hole punch to place them in a photo album. Be sure to label each recipe with the contributor's name and give the recipes each a cute name like "Cousin Emmy's Easy Squeezey Lemonade".

Make a personalized journal or stationary set for someone. Purchase ordinary envelopes and a blank journal. Search for a fancy pen or personalized pen (one with dogs for a dog lover, etc.). Decorate the cover of the journal with their name, a saying you love, or how ever you see fit. Take the envelopes out of the package and tie them with a ribbon and also tie the journal with a ribbon. Put them all in a basket and you have a gift to be given.
A stamper would be very useful in making this gift beautiful. You could stamp each envelope and each page of the journal to create a beautiful stationary set.

Remember those coupons you'd give Mom for Mothers' Day? The "good for one hug" and so on. Well do you know how much cleaning services are today? Alot! Think how valuable a coupon for a cleaning lady for a day would be. Or how about " Good for a full night of designated driver services". You could offer one complete lawn care service. Even a babysitting coupon. You really need to think of the person your giving the coupon to and their lifestyle. Are they busy carting kids around? Offer taxi services for the kids for one day. Is their garage a mess? Organization services are costly, but what is a day of rearranging your Dad's garage so that it is functional again? It's a great gift and can mean way more to the receiver than any purchased gift.

Next time you have to give a gift and have little money or want to stand out, any of these options will come in handy. What you need to do is think outside of the box and think about what you would like to receive.