The Best Christmas Gift You Can Give - and It's Less Than $2 Per Person!

Sometimes the most creative ideas arise out of desperation. That's exactly how I came up with the Christmas memories ornament. Although it was one of the most inexpensive gifts I've ever made and given, it has also proved to be one of the most cherished and enduring.

As a young college student I had little money for gifts as Christmas approached. Throw in a car repair and a roommate who skipped out on paying her half of the utilities and it was a near financial disaster. Yet I wanted to get Christmas presents for my family and close friends. Surely I had to at least get a present for my parents.

So, armed with $20, part of which I knew had to be used to pay shipping, I set out to look for something I could make that would cost less than a few dollars per gift. I wandered hopelessly up and down the aisles of the craft store, but it seemed every project I could think of was far more than my meager budget.

Then I came across a box of clear glass ball ornaments. At $1 each, they were affordable, even by my standards, and very pretty even undecorated. I bought five of them. One for my parents, each of my sisters, my grandma and my best friend. Then, for another dollar, I found a small container of pretty, glittery snow-like material that looked like it belonged in a snow globe.

At that point, I wasn't exactly sure how I would use the snow and the ornaments, but figured they were my best shot at making decent Christmas presents for a few bucks, so I took them home and gave it some thought. I tried to come up with a way to write poetry on the ornaments, maybe something that would mean something special to each recipient, but I couldn't figure out how to transfer the writing to the glass with the materials I had on hand.

I experimented with a decoupage on the inside of the glass, but it didn't look as elegant as I'd hoped. Staring at the bits of paper that had fallen to the bottom of the inside of the ornament, I suddenly had my inspiration.

I found some pretty white handmade paper that was left over from another project. (Even without the paper on hand, the project requires less than one sheet, and many stores sell beautiful paper by the sheet.) On the paper I printed out ten of my favorite memories of each person on my gift list. For example, for my sister I wrote a line or two about the Christmas when she got a new pair of rollerskates and we stuffed her pants with all the toilet paper in the house to cushion her many falls.

I carefully tore each memory from the page, leaving delicately frayed edges. Then I rolled each "memory strip" around a pencil, causing it to curl up like a small scroll, or curly ribbon.

Setting the memory strips aside, I then decorated the ornaments with the snow, using decoupage adhesive on the inside and shaking snow in each one until the entire inside was covered with a layer of crystalline, sparkling "snow." The effect was very pretty.

Once the inside of the ornaments was completely dry, I carefully placed the memory scrolls into each ornament and replaced the ornament top hanger.

I wrote a set of special instructions for each ornament, instructing the recipient to pull one memory scroll out of the ornament each Christmas as they placed it on the tree, read it and think of the wonderful times we've shared. Once a memory scroll has been read, it should be rolled up inside out, with the words showing on the outside, and placed back inside the ornament. After all the memories have been read, which should take 10 years, start all over again, this time rolling them with the words facing in as they are read.

This simple ornament has brought years of joy, not just for my friends and family, but for me as well. Every Christmas the recipients of my memory ornaments call to talk about the memory they discovered that year. By this time, I've forgotten what memories I wrote down, and it's a wonderful experience sharing the memory all over again.

And all this for less than $10.