Homemade Eco Gifts You Can Make for the Holidays!
November 19, 2008 by Jennifer
Green gifts can cost a little more; but not if you make them yourself. I’m going to give you some ideas for homemade eco gifts that won’t cost too much to make and that people will actually adore. Some are from Tree Hugging Family’s past, and others are new.
If I see any more over the next couple of weeks, I’ll post those too.
Great little homemade green gifts for party hosts:
Pennyroyal, Cinnamon, & Lavender Air Freshener
Flower & Spice Table Toppers via Family Corner
Organic homemade beauty gifts:
Following are some of the organic beauty recipes I’ve posted here over time. These make great low-cost homemade eco gifts. If you’re going to give one of these as a gift, make sure you spice it up. Put the product in a nice vintage looking jar or bottle and be sure to label it. You can make a wonderful custom label on your computer, or for say grandma, have your kids make the label with crayons and markers.
Homemade eco crafty gifts:
Solar Art Project – if you can find some sunshine, a solar print makes a great gift when matted. Image via Sunprint Gallery.
Make some homemade paper, then bind it into a journal with a beautiful cover. To learn how to make a homemade journal watch one of the following videos – Junk Journal (a pop and his daughter make a journal out of recycled trash!) or Basic DIY Book Binding Demonstration.
Make everyone a homemade reusable shopping bag out of old clothes or fabric you already have on hand.
Yummy green homemade gifts:
Cookie and Brownie Mix In a Jar – replace conventional items with organic.
Cornmeal Rosemary Biscotti or Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti
Get Out Those Canning Jars – by the timely Linette who must have known I was going to post about this.
Great homemade eco stocking stuffers:
Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids
Recycled and molded crayons: Grab those broken crayons and learn how to mold them into cool shapes (use holiday molds).
Bonus homemade joke gift for bad co-workers, mother-in-laws, or your lame ex: Homemade Anti-Tree Hugging Beauty: Bacon Soap!
Stay tuned because soon we’ll also be looking at some more homemade gifts (hopefully) plus eco-friendly wrapping ideas. In the meantime, Eco Street had a great post last year -7 groovy handmade recycled gifts to make and give, that has plenty of cool ideas, even for pets.
November current events at Tree Hugging Family – themes, reviews, news, and more…
So many great gift ideas here, I don’t know where to start:) I adore homemade gifts. Thanks for mentioning the canning jar recipe.
Ah ha, it’s my physic friend. Quick – what am I thinking… did you guess? Actually I was thinking about slurpees, so if you did guess, I’ll faint. Thank you for the link back to this
I’m not telling you what you’re thinking until I get it posted:P OK, now I’m making no sense, time to go to bed.
I love making gifts. It’s always fun to have people insist you couldn’t have made ‘it’.
I pick two or three things to make each holiday season and then make 10-15 of each. I have gifts for everyone and the efficiency of scale-thingy kicks in to save money and time!
This year:
Biscotti
Limoncello (basically lemons & vodka in a pretty bottle, easy, chic!)
Lavender soaps
I keep an ongoing list of things I like, that are easily made and well received.
things I’ve done in the past:
Homemade Kahlua
Chocolate Truffles
Grapevines planted in (cheap) terra cotta pots (my brother in law is a winemaker but you can get these very cheaply thru growers!)
Potted paperwhites/amaryllis
Salt scrubs
Beeswax candles
happy holidays!
I’ve been wanting to make chunky crayons! The Make and Take link had all the details I felt I was lacking in how to! Thanks!
And I’ve decided to make soaps again for Christmas, like I did years ago before kids. They were beautiful. I might even get ambitious and make a couple rice heating pads. . .
Also, if you know someone who can supply you, baby food jars make great containers for all sorts of little homemade gifts: container candles, lavender milk bath, two-serving drink mixes