Home Made Gifts

For Adults

• Metal work objects, sculptures - my father is a pro at making beauitful metal art.  If you have the talent, please bless your friends and family with your art!  My father has made beautiful metal roses, animals, wild grasses, people, ships, creative and useful objects, created metal stall nameplates for horse stalls, even metal signs for stables all with the touch of his hand.  Every time someone sees a piece of his work in my home they have to ask about it. 

For Kids

• Wooden playthings - trucks, cribs, kitchen sets, food, toys, farm/animals, wooden wall hanging such as crosses with carvings and delicate details, etc.  During my kid years, I collected Breyer model horses.  I had a ton of them!  One year my father made me a wooden stable and a horse trailer for the 'traditional' sized model horses..  It was so cool!  He's also made me a kid-sized desk, a wooden crib with shelves under the crib enclosed behind wooden doors, creative shelving units, a small dinosaur shelf, tack boxes and tack cabinets for my real horses. 
• Felt or Flannel Boards with accompanying felt or flannel objects to tell stories, play games, or let creativity run wild!  These can easily be made by purchasing a large poster-sized picture frame.  Pop out the glass and cover the back part of the frame with felt or flannel.  Stick the back part into the frame and secure - instant and nice looking felt or flannel board.  Most boards are white, allowing for a large variety of uses.  If you want to get really creative and make several, one could be made half green and blue to look like grass and sky, one black for a night time theme and one white for all purpose.  Once your board is complete, it's time to use patterns to create the objects that will stick to the board.  Search online for felt board or flannel board stories, or rent some pattern books from your library.  You will find tons of free patterns, stories, and activity ideas at your disposal.  Duplicate the patterns you want to use on the felt and create or print out a story line. Store each story and its pieces together so they don't get lost.  You can make your own pieces - cut out and decorate the felt or flannel yourself. This is great if you want to put more than one piece on top of each other (for things like 'paper dolls' in flannel or felt - you can cut out dolls and their clothing and accessories and your child can 'dress' their own doll on the flannelboard).  Or you can print out your patterns and color them yourself (or print out colored objects) and glue them to your felt or flannel.  I created my flannelboard by using a white flannel bedsheet.  I folded it in half and wrapped it around one of my husbands large cardboard shooting targets.  Using large pins, I pinned the sheet securely in the back so it won't move around.  I store this in the same bag with my dry erase board and stick it on the easel for my kids to use!  I have a binder full of page protectors, and put each story or activity in a page protector of its own.
• Home made play dough or clay
• Make objects that your child can string together (beading) or create lacing objects with dough that can be baked so the finished product is easy to be held by little hands and is sturdy!  Large cookie cutters can cut out shapes (or you can print out templates for shapes or creatures online, cut them out, lay them over dough you've rolled out, and cut around the template), and toothpicks can poke holes.  I was actually out of toothpicks and needed to pole holes for some Christmas gifts this year (2007) and ended up using the end of one of my hand mixer attachments!
• Create funny hats, capes, vests and aprons for your kids.  If you have one of these laying around, you can trace it and create your own pattern, then add your own personal touches!
• If your child has baby dolls, consider making cloth diapers (just create an inner and outer shell, no need for an inner pad), diaper wipes, a burp cloth, doll-sized blankets and clothes, a diaper bag, bedding for a crib, sling or baby carrier, etc.  Anything you use on your real baby can probably be replicated easily for your child's dolls.  If need be, patterns can be purchased just for doll-sized clothing!
• Cut out instruments on cardboard.  My kids loved pretending to play the guitar with a guitar I cut out and decorated from cardboard.
• Bean bags and a target (make a target out of cardboard - cut out several holes, or make like a basket ball hoop out of other materials).
• Using beads, create necklaces and bracelets for your girls.  Add their names and your phone number with number/letter beads.  Or put a pocket on the necklace with your Childs picture and your contact information.

For Babies

• Home made cloth diapers, bibs, blankets, outfits, booties, hats, slings/baby carriers, carseat covers, grocery cart covers, toys, playmats, etc.