Help! Inexpensive gift ideas

I have a large circle of friends whom I love dearly, but all the birthday dinners/festivities and GIFTS end up busting my budget almost every month. Needlesstosay, this does not mesh well with my travel fund growth.

I've already taken to skipping some of the expensive dinner parties, and I dress thirsty to the bigger bashes so's as to maximize drink-wrangling. But I can't show up empty-handed, especially when we're talking about the 30th b-day of a friend of 10+ years.....

Would love to hear some thoughtful, less expensive gift ideas for friends who seem to have everything?

Make something for your friend! It's very thoughtful, personal, and can be really cheap (even free if you have the supplies lying around the house!).

It's pretty limitless in what you can make. Think of some things this person could use. Example, if they have a home and could use some fun decor...make something for their home (stretch a cool fabric print over stretcher bars or a painting canvas, make a mosaic, etch glasses with a fun pattern, do something with pictures/knickknacks from your memories, etc etc etc).

If you think of something to make, post the idea and I'll see if I can brainstorm on how to make it

etch glass? stretch fabric? *brow wrinkles* wont I have to take a class first?

I'm more on the ceramic ashtray level of arts and crafts, if ya see what I'm saying? Tho one year I did make my own Xmas cards... it only took me til the middle of January to do it heh

but let me keep an open mind here

can you recommend some sites with crafty projects like the ones you mentioned? I do appreciate how home-made stuff really speaks volumes, just dont feel capable most of the time. Or I totally run out of time and settle for something easy to appreciate but underwhelming (i.e. alcohol).

Which reminds me, I guess Xmas is right around the corner huh? shit.

potholders for everyone?! :-\

I am definitely also on the ceramic ashtray level - at a stretch! I have sometimes made my own cards though - birthday cards can be so expensive to buy!

One thing I have done a few times - if I have a good photo of me and them, especially a photo from something special (eg one of my friends and I when we were travelling together) I get it enlarged and put it in a nice frame for them - usually works out pretty cheap - and so far its always been really appreciated....

I'm with the photo idea.

One of the best (and cheapest) gifts I have ever made was as a graduation gift for my girlfriends back in high school. I took a bunch of funny pictures of us and put them all together in a story. I made color copies of the photos, got some cute little journal books, and pasted them in with a little story line in between. Super cute, super easy, super cheap, yet... very thoughtful :-) We still look back and laugh and remember all those good times.

Also, sometimes getting stuff off amazon used but great condition is a way to go...

Etching glass is easy as pie, and doesn't require heavy tools like you would expect from the name, just etching cream and a few other little things, like a brush and stencil.

Go to your local craft shop or dollar store and get some inexpensive, plain, glass items like vases, wine glasses, etc. Plain mirrors, or antique mirrors from a flea market are fun things to work with as well. Your local craft shop should also have a glass etching kit, or sell glass etching cream which is good for many uses. You can uses stencils or free-hand a design on the glass (following the instructions on the bottle of etching cream). When you wash it off, the spots where the cream was have a frosted look. I don't recommend trying to write words/dates without a stencil though, I've never had luck with it!

The design doesn't have to be complicated either. I had a sheet of heart-shaped stickers lying around my house near Valentine's Day one year. I bought a plain sugar bowl and creamer (under $3 total) and then stuck the background of the sticker sheet straight on the glass (so there was a outline of a 3 hearts across), filled it in with the cream and Voila! A matching creamer/sugar bowl with cute little hearts for Valentine's Day!

Custom glass charms (used to go around the base of wine glasses to identify glasses at parties) are simple and cheap to make. You just need some wire and some pretty beads or charms. If it's for a couple, make two of the charms with letter beads representing their intials, or for a wedding/shower gift use letters to write words like "love" and "joy". Make the project even easier by starting with wire forms designed to make hoop earrings! Pair them with a cheap bottle of wine, or your crafty etched wine glasses, a promise of a girls night watching movies and drinking wine, or (for a couple) a promise of a free night of baby sitting at your house so they can enjoy an evening in

Craftster has so many forum threads out there with tutorials on various projects. It's great for ideas. Also plenty of pictures for hand-holding through the crafts process. Many projects are really much, much easier than they look to be...no need to take a class

quote:

Originally posted by mina olen:
can you recommend some sites with crafty projects like the ones you mentioned? I do appreciate how home-made stuff really speaks volumes, just dont feel capable most of the time.

Mina!!!! What are you thinking girl? You put together some fabulous cd compilation/compilations especially for your friend's musical taste & make a homemade cover for it -- collage from magazines/materials or set it on a computer with "borrowed" images. You of all people would be able to put together a slamming cd as a gift, I'll bet you could access some hard to find stuff.

People love music as a gift.

... or you can make brownies, etc.. and wrap it really nicely. Add a copy of your special recipie.

Bead earrings are really easy to make for the non-crafty kind. You can get your supplies from any craft store.

And why not 'recycle' gifts that you don't particularly want? He hee..

Lost - I dig the photo idea, I'm going to try and keep it in mind year-round and maybe it will encourage me to take more pictures.

Brooke - That may be a little too thoughtful for me, but very cute and good idea nonetheless! what a great friend you are.

TracyAnn - Hey, you make it sound easy?! I actually do happen to have a stash of wine glasses I could use -- found a case for like $5 at Pier 1 and havent been breaking them as fast as I thought I might heh Love the idea w/the glass-boondogle-thingy too

Marisa - thx for the link; holy overwhelming craftiness! thx for the encouragement!

Ms. Christina - hmmm, there's a thought I guess my main issue with that is I'm such a slow-poke (as you know) that it takes me like 6 months to even make a halfway decent mix CD.... also, this sounds pretentious, but an inordinate number of my friends are DJs and I feel kind of inadequate since my mix wouldnt be, well, MIXED. But, with the proper packaging, I dont think they could deny the thought that counts.... Better get started now so I can see what I got by Xmas lol

cayce - Nice ideas. I've been known to recycle a gift or two lol and I have actually been interested in learning more about beading so earrings are not unthinkable. As for the baking, good in theory, but I've actually tried this and found it kind of stressful. And hot. I dunno, maybe with the right recipe.... like the *special* brownie recipe heh

All these ideas are very inspiring, thanks Ladies! Any more?

How bout for people who arent so dear (coworkers) but for whom something inexpensive and practical (or fun... or edible...) is appropriate?

That's a tough one.

I'm all for cheap/used books off amazon or something like that. You could really get any sort of cheap gift and make it fantastic by taking some extra time with the wrapping. Presentation does a LOT. After all, that shows you put time into really giving that person a gift, even if it is a dinky used book (or whatever)...

This is not so practical (it was a shitload of work and was possible because I'm a designer & thinking out page signatures is not so hard for me, plus I have the equipment), but another thing I did was make a book of selected writings for my sister.

I'm a huge literature junky & like to think I have great taste in stories poems & essays, so I pulled pieces of writing I thought my sister would like, scanned them in per page, and placed them into a quark file of 11 x 8.5 size (each page folded in half and became 4 pages). I printed them out, assembled them in signatures, and then bound them, with a fabric cover.

It was kind of a pain in the ass, but she was really moved. And I did select some really good short stories & essays & such, if I do say so myself.

If you were do that (like maybe with a series of great poems), I would say forget actually binding it like a book. Try xeroxing them onto single pages of a cool, textured paper stock, then punch a hole at the top into one corner (or maybe both top corners). You'll also need a heavy stock, or something heavy like plexiglass to use as a front & back cover, and either use a bit of ribbon to hold it together for a paper book or buy a round binder ring (they usually come in packs in the school supplies section) to run through the hole if you're doing the plexiglass.

That's still a lot of work, but if you want to pursue that, feel free to ask me any questions about materials & how to do that, being a designer I've made a lot of those kind of gifts so know my way around typesetting covers & getting good papers.

Also, it's easier to pick something you make and make it en masse for a whole group of friends. Along that line:

- if you can, make one cd mix & make several copies for all your friends (tho it sounds like a tough crowd, eh. at least then you could take your time with it to make sure it's really an interesting mix, if that will be everyone's holiday gift).

- bake a ton of different cookies in different shapes, & package them prettily (that's especially good for the coworkers). Around our chinatown here there lots of plastic stores that sell clear plastic boxes for cheap, & also lots of ribbon trimming stores.

- make beeswax candles (my coworker took a class, or else bought a kit & did this.)

- if you can figure out how to silkscreen (I think you can get a simple kit for $50), design & silkscreen a bunch of tshirts. Maybe print something Hawai'ian centric/Hawai'ian insider ("Mahalo this!"... ok stretching I know), or if your friends are like mine a nice little peace slogan, or a quote you love set in a funky font, like "War is over, if you want. -- John Lennon", etc. The nice thing about the shirts would be they could all be a little different, you can buy different colors. And you can make 2 or 3 different screens & make a series of shirts. It would be worth it if you're going to make gifts for 10-20 people (even if you spend $100 on the materials, it's still cost effective).

You guys have some great ideas! I'm totally wanting to bust out my creative side... if only I wasn't at work right now... gar!

I will definitely be using some of these ideas this holiday season

Can I sort of add on to the question? I've got plenty of ideas for birthdays/small events, but anyone have any ideas for WEDDINGS?!

I've already got 3 lined up for the first half of next year, so that means 3 shower gifts and 3 wedding gifts!! Yikes.