Saving Money on Gifts
Sure you still want to be generous, but you'd like to be able to pay the bills as well! Here are some unique, yet inexpensive gift ideas that anyone (kids included!) would be happy to receive!
Honor the junior artist you know by giving them a "Create a Masterpiece" kit! Include some art supplies (that you picked up in advance during the back-to-school sales, of course!) and a few picture frames from the dollar store to show off their work in!
Get a child started collecting or honor what they already do collect! A small plastic tackle box in any size makes a great rock collection holder. A small photo album with adhesive pages works great as a sticker album. Empty film canisters are fun to hold coins in.
Instead of a night out at the movies, give a gift to ensure a great night in at the movies! It's great gift idea for an entire family by ensuring a great time spent together. Grab a neat box or basket, a DVD everyone can enjoy, some microwave popcorn and some fun candy.
Looking for gifts for extended family? If you can spare a bit of your own time and effort, collect family recipes, typeset them and make your own family recipe books as gifts.
Encourage a hidden author by gifting them with a "Publishing" kit! Include some notebook paper and pencils for the writing and editing phase and a hard cover composition book and some markers for publishing the final draft!
If you have a scanner, get your kiddos to create some artwork for you. You might as them to create seasonal pictures and others with holiday themes for throughout the year. Scan the images, save them as JPEG images and burn them onto a CD. Give them as gifts to family as friends so that they can enjoy the children's artwork as wallpaper on the computers! (Sure beats the generic default wallpaper options!)
Some very beautiful and fun ceramic tiles can be found for cheap at hardware stores. Purchase a few, add cork or felt "feet" and - Voila! - Great, unique coasters!
Know a little girl who loves to play with dolls? Give her a new wardrobe for her baby doll by picking out some cute baby clothes at a local thrift shop. Buy 'em for cheap, launder and package in a pretty basket and you're sure to please any little mommy!
If you love scrapbooking or paper crafts in general, consider making some beautiful, blank cards to give as a gift set. You get the fun of being creative and your recipient gets to save a little money all year long!
Books can often be found in like-new condition at the thrift store or used book store. If you know someone has a favorite author, be on the look out throughout the year for those books. By the time the holidays or a birthday rolls around, you could have quite a substantial book gift set for cheap!
Beading seems to be the latest crazy for many adults as well as kids. Put together an eclectic collection of beads and charms from thrift store findings. If you find neat beads as part of a necklace, simply unstring them. Put them all inside a pretty tin or container.