Great Homemade Presents to Make With Kids
It’s the thought that counts, and the love that goes into it. No
need to spend a fortune on gifts, your kids will love making 
them for
grandparents, cousins and teachers – and the recipients will treasure
them. Fair warning: If the kids help, your gifts are bound to look less professional -- but that will just make them all the more valued by the giftee, so be brave. Take photos of your child making the present
and Grandma will think it's priceless.
Remember that your goal is to have fun with your child and give a token of affection, not to exhaust yourself. Why not just whip up big batches of something most folks will like (Fudge? Bath salts?) and finish all your presents in one weekend, while having fun with your kids? Hopefully this list will get your creativity fired up; more explicit directions are easily available online.
1. Anything
from your kitchen: Cookies, jams, fudge, quick breads, your famous
spaghetti or barbecue sauce, your special trail mix, or a kit with the
makings for something yummy, tied with a ribbon: your perfect pancakes
or scrumptious seven bean soup.
2. Booklet of favorite memories:
Have your child draw illustrations and write or type up his or her
favorite memories of/with the recipient and put it into a binder to
make a book.
3: Personalized cookbook: Your recipes, your child’s comments and drawings, in a binder.
4.
Personalized Mousepad: Let your child draw with markers on a white
mousepad. Or use flexible adhesive with any fabric. Or choose a photo
and use iron-on transfer paper. Instructions at:
http://desktoppub.about.com/od/transfers/l/aa_mousepad.htm
Or just do it at a copy shop or cafepress.com.
5. Handmade bath salts
Mix Epsom salts with essential oils, fragrance, and food coloring in a decorative jar.
6. Candles
Add crayon chips to plain paraffin wax and dip wicks in to make hand-dipped. Or just decorate storebought candles.
7. Canvas bags with iron-on designs
8. Homemade calendars with photos of the kids
7. Painted picture frames
8. Tie-dyed teeshirts, sheets, etc.
9. Christmas ornaments with kids’ photos
10. Art: For grandparents, a framed picture drawn by a grandchild is the perfect present.
11. For friends and cousins: homemade clay, fingerpaints, bubbles, puppets, a kit of dress-up items, a kit of cool art supplies, a book of photos in a three ring binder with laminated pages that you and your kids create together.
12. Certificates for your services: A massage, babysitting, dog walking, painting a room, flying a kite together.
