So Anne and I wanted to share some of our favorite ideas for cheap Christmas presents. If you don't celebrate Christmas, that's okay too! Our ideas are meant to translate to cheap gifts for all occasions.
A few years ago I decided to start making holiday/birthday/thank you/etc. cards myself since buying them can be so darned expensive. I buy my supplies at Michael's craft stores in their "dollar card making supplies section." This way, you can buy a pack of blank cards and supplies for less than $10 depending on how fancy you want to get. I find that when you invest in the stamps and ink they can go a long way and shave down costs in the long run. I like to spice up my holiday greetings by putting funny sayings in the cards unlike the usual heart-felt holiday crap like "I wish you the gift of faith the blessing of hope, and peace of His blah blah blah..." Instead I opt for greetings like "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you're either drunk or at the North Pole!" This gives my friends a good chuckle and gives my cards the opportunity to stand out against the crowd.
Generally when I have too many people to buy for or I am low on cash, I opt for the home-made present route.
I did some digging on the internet to find some good new ideas this year, and I found two that I've become quite fond of. I made both of my parents calendars on my computer and a few of my friends marble magnets.
To make the calendars, I used a Microsoft Publisher template and used colors I thought represented that month or season. I had also intended on putting in family birthdays, holidays, important events, etc., but I got low on time.
My mom got married this October, so for hers I used almost all pictures from the wedding. For my dad's... it was a bit more challenging. My dad lives 3000 miles away so pictures were pretty limited (well that and he eloped so I didn't have something as conveienet as professional wedding photographs to borrow from).
Here are some examples from my mom's calendar:
I had these printed out and bound at my local copy shop for $.15 a piece of paper (x12). All in all it cost me about 4 hours of time and $10 a piece for binding, upgraded paper, etc.
The second idea I found was to make marble magnets. To do this, I used old calendars for the pictures, and bought the flat sided marbles from the Dollar Store (about 20/package). The magnets came in packages of 8 for $2.49 from Joann's Fabric (methinks you could probably find them cheaper, but I live in no-man's-land...). I also used cheap craft glue, but if I did it again I would probably use silcon glue (which I also couldn't find).
The first thing I did was trace the image I chose around the marble (using the back "preview" pictures on the calendar got the most picture-bang-for-my-buck). I then cut out the pictures and put a dollop of glue in the middle of the picture. I pressed down firmly and was able to watch the glue spread evenly over the picture. I then turned the marble upside down (back of picture up) and allowed it to dry overnight. I then put a dollop of glue on the magnet and let that dry overnight. They sell metal gift card boxes at the Dollar Store that are perfectly sized for a set of 8 of these magnets, but none were Christmas themed so I skipped it this time.
Here is an example of an art themed set I did from an old Van Gogh calendar.
Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment