Looking for an easy handmade gift idea that you can make with kids? Here are 5 simple kid-made gifts that my girls have made for people near and dear to them. There are gifts for grandparents, teacher appreciation gifts, fathers day gifts and more – all with a cute personal touch to make somebody smile.
You might also like our roundup of 50+ handmade gifts from bloggers around the world
Kid-made gifts will never look perfect. They often cost money to make, take up time and create mess while making them. For these reasons I’m not surprised that most people usually choose to buy gifts from the shops instead.
However, I personally think that the good reasons to help your kids create their own gifts outweigh all of the above. So before we get started, here are my five top reasons that handmade is always best…
Five good reasons for kids to make their own gifts:
- It’s fun! Admit it, making stuff is way more fun than getting caught in a noisy, crowded shopping centre with kids in tow trying to find that one special thing for someone you love.
- The sense of pride and accomplishment kids feel when they give away the gifts they’ve made. No matter how imperfect their creations turn out, they are always proud of them and think they look awesome! This is great for their self-esteem.
- Gift making encourages kids to put effort into giving. This is especially important at Christmas time when it’s hard for a kid not to get caught up in all the stuff they’re going to be getting on Christmas day.
- It helps kids to appreciate and think about the important people in their lives like their teachers, grandparents, relatives and friends. I’ve seen my girl’s faces light up at the thought of what they could make for somebody just as much as it does when they are thinking about the toys they want for themselves.
- It teaches important skills for life. Whether it’s sewing, making useful handcrafts, potting a plant or whatever you’ve decided to make it’s something that gives them a useful life skill. Kids need to learn that not everything comes from a store.
Today I’m sharing with you some of the things we have made this year. My kids have done as much of the making as they are capable of, and at ages 6 and 7 they are able to do most of it by themselves, with a proud mama looking on whilst trying to turn a blind eye to the enormous mess all over the table and floor!
Arty Bookmarks
We added these handmade bookmarks to Grandparents and Aunties’ gifts. They’d also be great for teacher appreciation gifts, neighbours, friends and anyone you gift a book to.
To make them create some liquid watercolour and salt process art using good quality watercolour paper. Cut the finished art into strips, punch a hole in the top and braid some yarn tails to decorate.
Bookmarks make great gifts because they are useful, take up very little space and will make somebody smile every time they open their book. In the past we’ve also made recycled cereal box bookmarks as gifts.
Bath Bombs
As teacher gifts this year we decided to try our hand at bath bombs. There are a huge number of varying recipes out there, but in ours we included:
• 1 cup salt
• 1/2 cup citric acid
• 1/2 cup Epsom salts
• 1/4 tsp water and
• 2 tbsp coconut oil.
For fragrance and colour we added essential oil of lavender and a small amount of liquid watercolours.
The girls were a bit inconsistent with the amount of liquid they added, and too much liquid will make the bath bombs fizz up excessively while you are still making them and they won’t work properly. Also we discovered that the mixture needs to be packed very firmly into the mould to avoid the finished product becoming too crumbly.
Our first batch of bombs worked beautifully, but unfortunately the humidity got to them and they went all mushy before we could give them to the teachers. Not to worry – we made a second batch! This time I made a batch along with the girls and that helped because the ones they made were a bit too crumbly and had to be tipped as fizzy crumbs into their own bath instead.
We purchased a nice storage container for each teacher and filled them up with the bath bombs that did turn out and the girls each wrote on the tags. They looked cute all packaged up! We hope the teachers enjoyed some relaxing hot baths from our efforts.
The kids both adored the sensory process of making bath bombs and couldn’t get enough of running their hands through the mixture.
Thank You Cards
We found these cute printable thank you cards at Picklebums and the girls each painted one for their teachers and wrote a message inside it. Having a pre-designed template for the kids to colour in or decorate how they liked made it quick and easy for me to get the hand made thank you cards sorted. We used liquid watercolours again for ours, but you can see how beautifully Kate and her family has decorated them and view all of the different templates she has designed here.
Christmas Bauble
Miss K also made a special Christmas decoration for her teacher using a plastic fillable bauble. We originally found this idea over at Creative Play Central, where they have created gorgeous, sparkly keepsake ornaments for their own tree. Our technique is slightly different, miss K drew two circular pictures the same size and glued them together with string in the middle, which I suspended from the hole at the top before putting the silver cap on.
Arty Coasters and Photo Frame
We made these arty coasters and photo frames for fathers day. They are as simple as they look to make, and the Dads in our family loved them!
I bought some plain wooden coasters from Bunnings which are similar to these ones here. I set up some acrylic paints with cotton tips imagining that the girls would create designs using dots but they just used them as you would a paint brush and these are the results.
The red one with the face is meant to be Mr Strong – just like Daddy! I also gave them a couple of blank wooden frames to paint, we gave one to Pop and one to Daddy with cute photos of the kids in them. We sealed with some Mod Podge.
Are you feeling inspired to do some gift making at home? We hope so. To me it feels lovely to receive gifts that are hand made by my girls – or any kids, and I always assume that everybody else feels the same way.
I think the fact that they are filled with so much love and good intentions makes all the difference!
more handmade gift ideas
- Put together a home grown gift basket using produce from your own garden
- These coil pots from air dried clay would make lovely gifts
- We have a set of printable blank card starter templates intended for Mothers Day, but they are fabulous for anybody at any time of year
- This printable mother and baby koala card is so cute!
- Here is a cool fathers day “explosion” gift card printable
- If your kids are too little to do much making, try repurposing their artworks into gift
You can find LOTS more hand made inspiration on our gift ideas board on Pinterest. Are you following us?
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