Seeing as things are a little tight for a lot of people this year, I thought it would be nice to start a thread about gifts that you can make yourself - I for one love these because it shows effort and thought!

So my idea is as follows, for stocking fillers for everyone. They are salt dough personalised tree decorations.

You need

Greaseproof paper
Paper clips
Paint
Yacht varnish (needs to be waterproof as the dough cannot get any moisture in it once cooked or it will go soggy)

2 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
3/4 cup of water (maybe a tiny bit more)

Mix the above together in a bowl until a dough (like a bread dough consistency) is formed.

Take a chunk off and roll it into a long sausage about 1cm in diameter.

Mold it into whatever letter of the alphabet you want!

Press a paperclip into the top of the letter so that when it is cooked, the paperclip serves as the hanger for the ornament.

Place on a sheet of greaseproof paper and cook all letters in the oven on a low heat (200) for about 6 hours or until the letters are solid.

Take out and cool, then paint, varnish and bobs your uncle.

Heres the ones I made today - some painted traditionally, others tailored to whoever they were for. I shall be going to the dollar store to buy some small gift boxes to put them in - but you don't even need to do that, wrap them in tissue paper and put a bow round the top.



Looking forward to hearing everyone elses

Those look brilliant and I don't know about where you live but fancy letters are expensive to buy where I am.
Italian kids make lots of things with salt dough at pre school and primary as the schools can't afford to buy proper play doh or clay (so they say).

Another tip .......... glue little magnets onto the back of the letters.

Such a good idea!

A few (well more than a few) years ago I had a business making these and doing 'dough craft parties' (bit like tupperware but less useful). The only thing stopping you is your imagination - you can use cake decorating cut outs, cookie cutters etc.

Why not make mince pies out of the dough - put a paperclip in the top and you have mince pie tree decorations! make a tiny holly leaf to stick on top and thats all you have to paint

Here's a trick that kept my kids busy for hours last year during the Christmas school holidays.

Rip the cardboard off a used advent calendar and save the plastic mould, you know, the one where the chocolate shapes were.

Pour liquid plaster of paris into the moulds - leave to set - tip out and let the kids paint and decorate them. If you put a tiny hole in the top of them with a needle you can thread them and hang them on the tree or you can glue them onto parcels to decorate presents.

My girls in my family and I used to do a gift exchange every year. The only rules were that it had to be homemade and couldn't cost more than $10. One year I made stained glass tree ornaments for everyone (take a course at a local stained glass studio, it's a great hobby). Another year I quilted personalised pot holders for everyone, one year I made aprons out of remnants of fabric from the fabric store, made cookies and put them in nice tins from the dollar store.

My kids always liked to go through the box of old Christmas cards and cut out the pictures on the fronts to make gift tags with, too.

Buy the cheap styrofoam balls from the dollar store or Michaels and a bag of sequins and a box of straight pins. Put the sequins on with a pin through the hole in each until the whole ball is covered. Use a piece of ribbon for a hanger and attach it with a pin and a dab of glue and you have a cheap, but pretty tree decoration.

Something else Canadian...Save up the little creamer containers from when you go to coffee shops. After you've washed them all out glue the openings of them together. Poke a hole in the top and stick a flexible straw through so the bend is at the top. Paint it all black with craft paint and when dry paint on a little red and yellow "fire" on the front. They're little pot-bellied woodstoves!

What's a quilted pot holder?
Ah - just had a moment. I was thinking plant pots but now I'm thinking ... hot pans on the stove. Yes ?

Gift tags from Christmas cards - great and well loved idea.

Another idea for cheap tree baubles is ping pong balls. Use a threaded needle to pass some fancy thread through it from bottom to top and then paint, glitter, daub with glossy nail varnish or whatever is at hand.

Yes, the things to take hot dishes out of the oven, not plants! I've become an old lady with things like knitting and quilting keeping me occupied in the winter months.

If you made me a personalised one I'd leave it hanging up in the kitchen and not use it. Mine always seem to end up singed or stained - even though they get thrown in the washing machine.

My mum used to be mad for knitting and crochet. She made us some lovely outfits for our Tiny Tears dolls for Christmas one year.

Handmade gifts are typical at out tribal Xmas gatherings. Ones given to us rarely survive beyond unpacking when we get home.

The present thing has been getting rather out of hand in recent years. Souvette has more or less imposed a new policy for this year's "festivities". We did a secret draw of all the people's names. Each person is responsible for buying a present for one other person and the limit is $75.

We do this for each other, but the limit is lower, $30 and you have to buy at leat two gifts with that.

Mands I think your letters look anything but homemade, a very neat job. You really need to be running a craft shop. Or even working in one.

Our neighbours will probably all be getting a jar of green tomato chutney*. A couple of our tomato plants got going so late that the tomatoes never ripened, although they produced prolific quantities, so we picked several pounds green and my mother, when she was visiting in October, made chutney. But we're only giving away what is surplus to requirements - I'm keeping plenty for my lunchtime sandwiches...

You are turning into my MIL. We have more bottled beetroot and homemade ketchup than anyone could ever eat. I hate beetroot.

bleeuch - homemade tomato chutney I can cope with (actually, despite my reservations and the kids' ever-helpful "but Grandma, aren't green tomatoes poisonous?" it's pretty good) but you can keep your beetroot. We had a whole load last year, some of which went into some soup, some of which went on the tablecloth, and the stain is still there. Two-year-olds and root vegetable soup do not mix well.

I do lots of knitted gifts - anything from dishcloths and socks to mittens and scarves.

Another good one if you can bake is to make some cookies or gingerbread men and package them in a pretty tin.

Another simple one is to buy those sheets of coloured beeswax at Michaels and a roll of candle wick. You lie a strip of the wick against one edge of the wax and then roll it all tightly up around the wick. Make several (you can cut the wax into smaller pieces if you want to make smaller candles) and bundle a few together and tie with a pretty ribbon. Everyone I have given them to seemed really pleased with them.