Can’t afford a Christmas gift for everyone on your list? Look no further as these ten DIY presents are guaranteed to make your secret Santa gift exchange a memorable one.
Sometimes, the best Christmas presents are those made with a touch of love, a hint of personalization, and lots of memories. What better way to achieve that than coming up with your very own personalized DIY Christmas gifts?
Luckily, we’ve summed up the best and most thoughtful options on the internet when it comes to gifting your friends, colleagues, and loved ones with thoughtful handmade presents that would leave them looking forward to the next holiday season.
Whether you find yourself wondering how to get Christmas gifts with no money or perhaps questions like “what Christmas gifts can I make” keeps flooding your mind, we’ve got you covered.
So put on your creative hats as you glide through our top picks for DIY Christmas gifts
1. Pine-Scented Layered Candles
These layered candles appear as an exquisite mint and white striped waxy delight in a transparent jar. It comes with the glorious scent of pine, filling the recipient’s home with that relaxing Christmas feel all year round.
What’s more? It could be made with your regular household items found lying around in the kitchen. To create these sweet-smelling candles, melt the required amount of soy wax chips in a large pot over medium heat, and add drops of pine-scented oil.
Divide the melted wax into two bowls, adding green dye to one of them. The content of each bowl is poured in measured bits into a wreck jar with a wick at the center, with each layer left to solidify before adding the next.
You can make as many as desired, and line them creatively in a gift box to make the thoughtful present look more appealing. Also, experiment with different fragrance and color themes.
2. DIY Glass Terrarium
What’s better than a greenhouse which still flourishes in the winter? One that could fit into a gift box. While achieving that seems far-fetched, a DIY glass terrarium is the closest alternative.
This one-of-a-kind project is the best gift for lovers of nature, plants, and beautiful things. Conveniently, it only costs old picture frames lying dormant in the basement.
To make this beautiful piece, just gather all the picture frames you could find and remove the backs and glass coverings. Then using screws or hot glue, assemble them like a dollhouse, and glue the glasses back on each open surface.
Voila, your glass terrarium is ready. Don’t forget to add a lidded top using hinges to enable easy placement of plants and flower pots.
3. Colorful Marble Vase
Wondering what to do with the stash of marbles, gravels, seashells, and coins you collected all year round? This colorful Marble flower vase holds the answer.
All that’s needed to make it work is a small tumbler placed inside a larger vase and held in place with hot glue. Then fill the gaps between the marbles, putting the color theme into consideration.
As a finishing touch, seal off the top with a ring-shaped rim glued on to prevent the marbles from running over. Gravels, seashells, pebbles, coins, chipped pieces of stained glasses, or a mixture of all could be used in place of the marbles. Whatever ends up looking beautiful.
4. Personalized Luminaries
What’s not to love about this upgraded picture frame? Its luxurious outlook, its thrilling 4-dimensional design, or its ability to add a personal touch to your gift? Even better, anyone could put this together for less than 90 cents.
All that’s needed are four identical picture frames, colorful light bulbs, and memorable pictures of your choosing. First assemble the frames to form a cubicle, then glue a picture to each of the glasses before attaching them to the assembled frame.
You can then install a light bulb of your desired color to the center to illuminate it from within.
5. Festive Pillow
A throw pillow may seem ordinary, but when made in the right color, shape, and texture, it could be the missing piece of the happy Christmas puzzle. Furthermore, it is the ideal way to repurpose an old piece of clothing.
Just cut out a sizeable piece of material from an old duvet, a flowery shirt, or a large woven sweater and trim it into two identical desired shapes based on the recipient’s preference.
You can then pin the two pieces together and sew around, leaving one of the ends open. Turn inside out and stuff the pillowcase with loose fiberfill stuffing or pillow form before stitching up the open end.
From fishes to fluffy rings, any shape is perfect for this festive DIY gift. After completing the throw, you can include any chosen design as a finishing. Printing the recipient’s photo on the material before cutting out could add a personalized touch.
6. Money Tree
Being unable to decide the right Christmas present to get for a loved one is a dilemma everyone faces at some point. The ultimate solution would be giving them cash gifts instead.
Perhaps this explains why gift cards have become one of the top-rated Christmas presents in recent times. However, more people would appreciate the cash gifts more, as it avails them the liberty to decide what to do with the cash.
That said, given that cash isn’t exactly the most personal Christmas present, put some thought into it by making makeshift Christmas tree boughs using dollar bills, skewers, cardboards, and strings.
7. Personalized Recipe Box
Cookbooks are becoming stale gag gifts. After all, they are merely a repetition of what we already see on the internet. But you know what you don’t see on the internet? Grandma’s secret recipe!
So make the holiday extra special by scribbling the recipes of some of the recipient’s favorite dishes and rare pastries gathered from families across the globe on colorful cards cut into small squares.
Stack these up in a wooden box customized with colorful wallpapers and stickers to create a personalized recipe box. The perfect gift for gourmet enthusiasts.
8. DIY Clay Coasters
Purchasing air-dry or oven-bake clay from the local store could save you tons when it comes to making customized Christmas presents. Interestingly, one can mold a little mix into different household items, from dishes to flower vases.
However, none could be as mind-blowing and thoughtful as DIY clay coasters decorated with patterns of your choice. Stack up as many as possible in a gift box, and prove to the lucky recipient that you care about their furniture as much as they do.
The toughest part of this project is deciding the right shape and size. Once that’s settled, the sky is your limit in terms of creativity.
9. Macrame Plant Pot Holder
Hanging plant pot holders never get old, as they could make any space go from great to wow in a heartbeat. Anyone who is into antiques, interior decorations, or just a sulker for greeneries would want nothing more for Christmas.
Why not make their year by gifting them with this handmade macramé plant pot holder, with chipped pieces of gravel thrown in as an after-thought.
Any yarn color of your choosing could work the magic. Simply knit the yarn into four thick strings and knot them together at the top.
Then weave the other end into an adventurous pattern that could double as a holder for the plant pot. Not sure how to get the right plant pot? Anything from mugs with broken handles to ceramic jars could suffice. Just be sure to smoothen out the rough ends.
10. Homemade Diffuser Set
This homemade bespoke diffuser set could be a bit tricky, but the year-round goodness it avails its recipient would be worth it.
The process begins with making the desired essential oils and distributing them into glass bottles depending on the number of fragrances achieved.
Then fill a beautifully-shaped smaller bottle with the homemade essential oil and include a set of reed diffuser sticks. The extra bottles would serve as refills.
Carefully lay out the set in a gift box, and wrap it up. This gift is especially thoughtful because the recipient could freely combine fragrance at will, and achieve their desired taste, which is something you never get over the counter.
The perfect time to utilize those old perfume bottles or liquor jars that seemed too lavish and beautiful for the trash can.
Conclusively, while there are several DIY presents out there, the best Christmas gifts are those that are both practical and thoughtful, adding a touch of sentiment to your Christmas gifting session.
