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DIY Homemade Gifts

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The whole month of December, I’m itching to share with you guys the DIY homemade gifts that we’re busy making!

For the past 4 years or so, my extended family has had a homemade gift exchange. The kids pull a name from the cousin bowl and the adults all pull a name too.

SO much fun!! Seriously, one of the highlights of our holiday season!

Homemade Gift ideas for everyone in your family

Buuuttt, there are a lot of people in my family and it is a small room, so it is nearly impossible to get pictures of everything! Hands are moving, wrapping paper is flying and this is even with us “trying” to keep it somewhat organized and go one person at a time!

I managed to grab a few pictures, though, and hopefully it will be enough to jumpstart your ideas! Yanno, inspire you a little to start implementing a homemade gift exchange in your own family!

Here are a few of the shots I got!  My 12 year-old daughter made this for her 17 year-old cousin! Teenage boys aren’t the easiest, but she knew immediately she’d be going with a Star Wars theme!

We bought a $5 trashcan at Walmart and went to our local sign shop to see if we could purchase vinyl scraps. I made my daughter do all the talking and explaining of what she needed and the lady that worked there was so tickled, she gave her everything for free! Super sweet!!

My daughter used scrap paper to cut out all her patterns first and then later traced them onto the actual vinyl. She just went off a picture she found online and estimated all the sizes herself.

Star Wars R2D2 trashcan

 

My 13 year-old son picked his cousin’s name (I think he’s 6, maybe 7… gosh, I’m terrible with ages!). He made him this superhero wall hanging. We got a 2×4 and I cut it down to size for him. He did all the sanding, found images online that he sized appropriately and then traced them onto his wood.

I helped him clean up some of the edges, but he did nearly all of it himself (including adding the little screw hooks)!

DIY Superhero wood wall hanging

 

I picked my sister’s name, so I made her some marbleized jewelry bowls following a tutorial I found on A Beautiful Mess.  I would make mine a little thicker next time, but overall, I was happy with how easy it was! I want to experiment more with this technique!

marbleized jewelry dishes made from oven baked clay

 

My husband picked my other sister’s name, and he made her a bookshelf for her classroom. I had made this same shelf last year for our TV stand, and she had mentioned before that she could use something like that for her work. Hopefully some day I’ll get around to putting the plans on here!

TV bench before it's stained

I forgot to grab a picture of it once he finished, but here’s how it looks as our TV stand!

DIY TV stand that you can make in just a couple hours!

Here are some more of the gifts that were received this year:

A dollhead lamp my brother made for my other sister (I feel like I just keep saying “my sister”… I have 3, so I’m done now!)

Doll head lamp

A rope basket that the above sister made for me!

DIY rope basket

A basket of flavored vodkas my sister made for my husband:

flavored vodkas for a homemade gift

I wish I had pictures of all the other ones! There was a personalized snowglobe, a Batman wall sign that lit up, a voucher for a homemade meal, a bacon dish once a month for the next year, a couch sling for remotes and magazines, a wooden bench and so much more! I swear, our family needs to hire a photographer to get all these memories recorded!

And for our own family Christmas that morning, my daughter gave me her version of Tupelo Honey (one of my favorite songs by Van Morrison).

Tupelo Honey homemade gift

Tupelo Honey Lyrics

Here are some of our homemade gifts we’ve exchanged in previous years:

Wood Photo Board

Wood Photo Display Board

Batman Nail String Art

Batman nail string art