Affordable DIY Christmas gifts: 25 ideas for family

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Are you looking for affordable DIY Christmas gifts for family? DIY gifts are so exciting to make and can be a much better present than a store-bought gift. They show you have put the effort in. From chocolate fudge to movie night kits to making your own body scrub, I have included it all. There are gifts for children, your partner, your friends and your parents.

Affordable DIY Christmas gifts for family: Overview

• Gifts for Children
• Girlfriend/ Boyfriend
• DIY gifts for Friends
• DIY Gifts for your Parents

Other Gift Guides: Father’s day gift guide and 20+ gifts for the woman who wants nothing

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DIY Gifts for Children

Create your own bracelet/ anklet

I certainly know that when I was a child I was obsessed with bracelets. Even now, I have gotten into anklets. I made one when I was working in America in summer 2019 and I haven’t taken it off since. A bracelet is super fun to make and you can create any design you like.

All you need is some thread and possibly some beads if you wanted to add some letters or some different colours to it.

Sweetie box

You can’t go wrong with a sweeties box. I loved pic ‘n’ mix as a child ( I still do). So a great thing you can do is it just buy a tray that contains sections. Then you can fill it with your chosen sweeties.

DIY Play dough

Another fun thing to do either with your children or for children is to make play-dough. I found a very simple recipe to do this. You could even gift them the ingredient so they can then make the play dough themselves.

Hot chocolate packets

A simple Christmassy DIY gift can be creating hot chocolate packets or jars. All you have to do it find all the ingredient you want to include and then find a jar or packet big enough to fit it all in. You can present it however you like.

ADDITIONAL: You could even decorate the jar or packet with ribbons and colour. It would be a good idea to write a little tag including the instructions.

Seed growing kit

A great gift for a child would be to create a see growing set. When children are growing up it is so important to get them outside as much as possible so this would be a great way to do so. Giving them something fun to do will get them off their technology!

In this set you could include: the seeds, some compost, some plant pots and some little equipment. Maybe even a little watering can.

Nutella Christmas Tree

I found this nutella pastry Christmas tree which I thought was wonderful. Baking is a great way to gift people when there isn’t anything specific they are looking for or they ‘don’t want anything’.

DIY Gifts for your Girlfriend/ Boyfriend

Scrapbook

To create a scrapbook you just need a plain notebook/ plain scrapbook. You then need a couple of things you need for decoration. So this could include: ribbons, tape, coloured pencils, glitter, buttons, stickers, stencils, and there’s so many more options.

A great thing to do is to make it more personal and include images as well as memories. Write about dates that have meaning to you.

12 months of dates

This can be such a simple but effective idea. All you need to do is get 12 envelopes and 12 cards. Write each month on the cards and come up with an idea of something you can do each month. You could even decorate the cards and make them colourful. It’s completely up to you how you want to personalise it.

You could try and include things like: movie nights, mini golf, dinner dates, picnics, cocktails.

Love coupons

You can create little coupons that they can cash in. It is easy to customise these how you like and think up some of your own ideas. You can also buy premade ones of etsy that might give you some inspiration.

This can include things like: 1x dinner on me, shopping voucher, free gift, 1 x winner of argument, 1 x watch a movie you like, 1 x chore of you choice.

Movie night Kit

You can create a movie night kit is so many different ways and you include whatever you like. So you have had the sweets and chocolate you like, along with the popcorn of your choice in some popcorn boxes. I found this video that gives you some ideas of what you can include.

Date Jar

A date jar is a wonderful DIY gift as you can tailor if to things you enjoy. I have recently used this idea myself and produced my own version. I found a blog post from Chelsey where she goes through exactly how to make a date jar.

52 reasons why I love you

You can totally take this idea in any direction you want to. I have known some people use a pack of cards and write down 52 reasons and decorate the back of the cards. Another way you could do it is to write down 52 reasons and put them all in a jar and you can write instructions to your partner to only open one per week. Alicia has written a fab post on how you can create the card version.

Make some fudge

Who doesn’t like fudge?

There are so many recipes out there on the best way to make fudge. I have found a simple fudge recipe here. I have never personally made fudge myself, but I do love it and I know lots of people would be happy to receive some homemade fudge!

DIY Gifts for Friends

Treasure Chest of all things they like

Grab a box and fill it with lots of little things they like. This could be things such as socks, chocolate, face masks. Or you could include some more expensive items like jewellery.

12 months of activities

Similar to the 12 months of dates I mentioned earlier, you can create a friends version. Think up some activities you can do with your friends such as bowling, cinema, mini-golf, and write one per month on some card and present the cards in little envelopes.

Memories in a jar

Something i have tried before if creating a memory jar. You can write down all the good times and private jokes you have so that your friend can read through them. Its a great way to bring back old memories and have a laugh.

You could also include pictures in the jar to make it even more personal.

A box of their favourite colour

Similar to the treasure chest idea, you can create a box full of items of their favourite colour. Fun Squared have written a blog post all about how to create their tickled pink gift idea. So you can create something along these lines with whatever colour you choose.

Create bath salts

Create your own bath salts and gift them to a friend! It is such a fun activity to make the salts yourself. I found this super easy recipe you can follow to create the bath salts. All you need is a jar that you can put them it. Again, you can always decorate this jar however you like.

Design a phone case

This is something I have always wanted to do but never got round to doing it: creating and designing my own phone case. You can personalise it to their taste and even put their initials on it which I think would be cool.

DIY Gifts for your Parents

Lottery tree

Sticking with the Christmas theme, you can create a lottery Christmas tree. If you know your parents or anyone who loves a scratch card then this is a great idea for you. Katie from View from a Step Stool has written an excellent post on how to create the tree.

Chocolate Hamper

So I know I have mentioned chocolate hampers in a couple of my gift guides now. But I just love them! They are so easy to create and a great gift for everyone. They are so simple. All you need is some chocolate bars and a box to put them in. You can include little notes within the box if you like to make it more personal.

DIY Body Scrub

Similar to the create your own bath salts, you have the option to create your own body scrub. I found a web page that shows multiple recipes you can try. So you can see what sort of ingredient you have before you choose a recipe.

Christmas Cookies

Now I couldn’t make a Christmas DIY Guide without including Christmas cookies. You could simply make some short break and decorate them with Christmas colours. There are so many wonderful recipes out there but I personally favour the Christmas butter cookies.

Reindeer beers

Now I came across this idea on Kim from Life of a Modern Mom‘s blog. I thought it was an excellent way to jazz up some beers and make them more Christmassy.

Create your own Christmas Crackers

Last but not least, keeping with the Christmas theme we have Christmas crackers. Now store brought Christmas crackers are great and all, but the prizes and jokes have just got worse and worse. Which is why it is an excellent idea to make your own. You can personalise the crackers for your family and can even add in little pictures and game ideas. There are a couple of tutorials of google on how to create the crackers.

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