Top 5 Easy and Affordable Homemade Gifts for Babies

Although babies do enjoy toys with bright lights and music, more traditional, open-ended toys offer them hours of play with unending possible outcomes. Homemade toys Here are a few examples of simple to make gifts for the baby in your life.

Recycled Wool Jingle Ball

Babies love playing with toy balls. You can make a ball for baby this is not only soft, but also makes noise. You will need scraps from an old 100% wool sweater, a toy cat ball with a bell inside, panty hose and a washer and dryer.

Wrap the wool scraps around the cat ball. Put the wrapped ball into the foot of the hose and tie off snugly. Then you simply wash and dry the ball with your regular washing a few times. The ball is finished when you can feel that the wool is tight and felted together. Optionally, you can wrap the finished ball in a pretty wool yarn and felt it again either by hand or in the hose in the washing machine.

Crayons

Older babies love to color, but may break traditional crayons. As a solution, you can make larger and thicker crayons from broken old crayons. You will need broken crayons, a silicon mold or miniature muffin tin and an oven.

Put the pieces of crayon into the mold or tin. You can match like colors or even make rainbow crayons. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Place the mold or tin into the oven and then turn off the oven. Leave the crayons in the oven for a couple hours until they are cooled and hard.

Play Dough

Tactile experiences are very important for babies. Playing with play dough strengthens fine motor skills and is an excellent sensory experience. Since babies also like to put things in their mouth, play dough made from food grade ingredients will ensure safety if a small piece slips into baby's mouth. You will need 1 cup boiling water, 1 cup sifted flour, 1/2 cup salt, 3 tablespoons cooking oil and 1 package unsweetened Kool-aid.

Mix together the flour, salt and kool-aid. Add in the oil and mix well. Then put the boiling water in and knead until you have a smooth dough. Store the play dough in an air-tight container like a clean peanut butter jar.

Stuffie or Plushie

Fleece is a wonderful fabric for crafting and especially for babies. Fleece is soft, machine washable and doesn't fray. You can search online for easy, free patterns to make stuffed animals. Make them more fun by adding in the cat toy balls that have jingles inside or adding in crinkly, noisy plastic.

If you have a soft 100% wool sweater then you can use this instead of fleece. Simply wash the sweater in hot water and dry on high heat a couple times to felt it.

Another fun variation on this project is to make a one-of-a-kind stuffed monster. You will need 1/2 yard fleece, scraps of different colored fleece, thread and either a needle or a sewing machine. Optionally, you can use fusible web to help with the applique. It would also be possible to use recycled wool in this project.

Trace and cut out two body shapes. You can make them as simple or as complicated as you wish. Make sure that the two body shapes not only match in shape but also have the stretch of the fabric running in the same direction. Then you add on a face using the scrap fabric. Some find that using the fusible web stabilizes the applique to the body and makes it easier to sew the pieces in place.

Once you have the face complete lay the two body faces so that the right sides face together. Sew around the outside of the body, leaving a small opening. Turn the body right side out through the hole. Stuff the monster and then whip stitch the opening closed.

Embellished Shirts

Give a truly personalized gift with an embellished t-shirt. There are several different ways to embellish clothing. You can so something as simple as an iron-on patch. Check ebay for unique designs such as band logos, sport teams and symbols. Then you simply iron the patch onto the clean shirt.

You can also paint a design on a shirt using freezer paper as a stencil. Find instructions here.

Here is an example of using reverse applique if you can use a sewing machine.