Affordable Christmas Gifts

I thought this would be a good thread for everyone to post ideas of some affordable Christmas gifts.

I havent started my shopping yet but am going to make things easy for myself by purchasing:

Gorgeous Maxwell & Williams Sue Janson Mugs - they are a great size mug that come individually boxed. Google search them and you will see the awesome designs. They are only $5.95 each!! Pretty good for a boxed gift I say! I am even going to give these to my little brothers who are 9 and 7 as they like to have hot choccie sometimes and its nice to have your own mug. You can order online or I have seen them at the shop called 'House'

Movie Money- You can get gift cards for however much you want or the actual vouchers. Might get these for all of our parents and sisters.


Please add your ideas. :)

great thread! I don't really have any ideas so I'm subscribing instead!

Home made gifts are always nice, I've made a few cushion covers and placemats, things like that. Not so good for the menfolk, but a home-made basket of goodies goes down well! Especially if you include home-made rum balls, shortbread etc. Great for those hard-to-buy-for people too.

What a great thread idea!

Beach towels - always handy.
Jars of gourmet food - from a great deli, or homemade from markets.
Seedlings - veges, herbs, flowers

We only do $10 gifts in our immediate family (parents etc) so I'd love to hear what everyone comes up with.

i think photos of kids are also great, we reprinted and enlarged some for outselves and added the girls name in, just done at kmart, they look great too, and not too expensive

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Jars of gourmet food

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I did this last year when I found those gorgeous edible champagne hibiscus flowers at the gournet deli.

From memory about $7.00 a jar but they are a massive hit for people who drink champagne. For those who havent seen them, you put them in your champagne and they open up with the bubbles and flavour the champagne like strawberries do! YUM!

I love that hibiscus idea! how many are in a jar?

Think there is about 8 or 10 in a jar from memory

member Winter recently gave me a brilliant gift idea for an adult (especially those hard to buy for) ... it's a demi or half size bottle of Moet Chandon (200ml), comes in a nice box :D ... i got it from bottle shop Dan Murphy's for $22.95 (rose Moet Chandon is $27.95) :dance: ... could put choccies with it if want it to look more ;)


********* My DD's 1st Xmas we purchased little wooden easels with a small canvas sitting on it (set was on special about $6.00 from Spotlight, we bought about 8 of them) and we bought ONE small tube of non-toxic hot-pink coloured paint at about $4 or $6 (which we never finished the tube of so was plenty of paint) & placed both her footprints on them & on the back i wrote her name & age at the time when done & the Xmas year ... We gave them to close relo's & friends & everyone absolutely LOVED them (and is so nice to see them sitting in everyone's homes with pride when we visit) ... oh, and WE kept one for ourselves too :D **********

This is a wonderful thread! I want to have a think of my ideas and will post...so just subscribing at the moment so I can find it again!

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Beach towels - always handy.

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DH and I have been given SOOOO many beach towels - we have 10!!!

And I don't like the beach....:rofl:

LOVE hibiscus flowers tho - but that may have something to do with the champagne that goes with them!

Sorry I don't have any ideas to add...I love giving books - esp non fiction books/reference books that correspond to a persons hobby or interest.

photobooks are awesome and can be done without it being too exxy - if you watch BIG W website, you can get 20 page books done for less than $10 each - and they come up pretty well for a soft cover book. i have arranged these for my mum and aunt for Christmas

harvey norman are selling snow domes and baubels that you put photo's in. they'd make a nice Christmas Gift.

Little Kids:
Chalk, Jumbo Crayons, Coloring books, stickers, X-Mas Decoration

Adults:
Flavored Oil (bought DP garlic infused Oil for his b'day)
Photos - last yr each grandparent got one of those mini albums full of pics of DD, we also made Photobooks for people like BG said.
X-Mas Decoration, handmade or otherwise
If you have kids sometimes finger paintings or drawings put into a frame are great gifts.

I love the idea of seedlings etc

I can never help myself at x-mas so will be watching this thread for some great ideas!

My friend buys her mum a Christmas tree ornament (porcelin sp?) with her DD picture on it. I think it costs around $10. Now her mum has a Christmas record of how her GD grows over the years

Just got this week's Big W catalogue - their personalised calendars are $9.98 each, I will definitely be doing a few of these to distribute to family, and at $10 they make a cheap present that has sentimental value and is also useful! Not sure how much they normally are but I think that price is very affordable.

They also have digital keyrings, 2 for $20, normally they are about $15 each, so again a pretty good saving. Think I might get a couple for me and DF, says they hold up to 52 photos (1MB).

I did personalised calendars last year and the one before. They are always a winner!

i always ask for a meat or fruit tray :)

and those calenders sound cool !!!

i did up a hamper at the discont chemist for the familes i had to buy for , fit loads of stuff in for under $35 !!

also , the warehouse sells brandname toiletries so can do up a hamper and no one will know ;)

and home made biccies /sweets are ALWAYS welcome (well they are in my house anyway :) )

ETA : if your after cool gifts for kids < $10 .. google kids gift list ... was a winner for me last year !!

Oh this year I'm making handmade gifts. It's a huge project, since I only started sewing this year. It's not that cheap (taking in account the wonderful fabric I just HAD to buy ;) )

I'm making grocery totes, slippers, passport protectors, bookbags and various little trinkets like stichmarkers, bookmarks, earrings etc.

just checked out the Kids Gift List site- I could go crazy on there!! Have bookmarked it for future reference, some of the toys, although cheap, are quite nice!

Thought of some more to add

The reject shop have these great paint your own canvas with a picture on it and paints and paintbrushes attatched for $5.00!! Bargain and would be fun for kids to do in the holidays.

Also those cadbury chocolate stockings are always a winner and are $5.00 each.

Keep ideas coming. :)

For children (I'm going to do this for DD), you could make your own christmas stockings, or other christmassy things (decorations etc). I don't know how much the material is going to cost, but I don't think it will be that expensive as I shouldn't need too much (unless I stuff it up the first time..lol). I think it will have sentimental value as time goes on, something to mark her first christmas.

Ali ... my Mum still gives me those Cadbury Choc Stockings (and um, Humpty Dumpty Easter Egg for Easter) each and every year since i was a little kid ;)

...... i'm a big kid at heart and life would never be the same the day my Mum can no longer give 'em to me (DP said he will take over doing the job of giving 'em to me when she can't anymore, how lovely is that :heartbeat:) !!

........................... ???????? ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT TO GIVE MY 14YEAR OLD NEPHEW FOR XMAS ?????????? .............................

cd/dvd vouchers are always good, or a book voucher if he reads...boys are always so hard to buy for once they get older...my dad is the worst! Normally end up getting him something he can eat..lol. He has a sweet tooth, but high bp so shouldnt really be eating junk food...but I don't know what else to get him! Apart from clothes...but they are boring if you get them for every birthday and christmas!

What do you get hard to buy for dads?!? Doesnt have any hobbies (very occasionally goes fishing but doesnt have the time to go as he is a farmer), doesn't read, isnt into technology..i'm sure you get the picture!

Storm ... my Dad's the same (though not a Farmer, ha !!) ... so, old DVD movies of his generation are a hit with him :dance:

............... Storm, would your Dad be in his approx 50's ??? ... Just thought if you wanted any ideas with movies i might be able to help (if interested) ;)

My dad generally gets shirts or tshirts!!

Give him books they are never read, cant do sweet stuff as diabetic, fussy with aftershave!!!

GRRR dads are so hard!!! Its his birthday next week so bought him a cd

My Dad is the same, so I made him a DVD of his life in pictures and added appropriate music for each era of his life. It took a bit of time scanning the pics and finding the right song and then timing it - but it was worth it in the end. It only cost the price of the blank DVD and my time = lots of love.

i made DH a recipe book - just bought a binder and some nice paper. then typed up all his scrappy handwritten inventions and printed it all and arranged it in the folder with dividers.

did a cover and included metric/imperial conversions; oven temps etc. Worked out very cheap and all from home.. just took a bit of time.

for my brother i hit the sanity/bigdub movie sales - van damme box set and a box set about the golf war for $30 all up.

also... good for dads - stubby coolers. my dad collects them so they are great.

someone else mentioned hampers - these can be so good and cheap to do but the trick is getting a right sized basket (too small and you look cheap, too big and you look cheap lol).

Great idea for a thread, and great ideas so far!

Just subscribing, but will BBL with ideas :)

Nadine, Would you be able to sew me some passport covers please?? I would need at least 4, but possibly 8! Please email me if you are interested d85@aapt.net.au xx

Yeah Smiles my dad is in his mid-late 50's. I think he likes the old Westerns, cant remember the name of the guy but there is one actor he does like from them. He usually ends up falling asleep watching tv..guess that just makes it a double present..a movie and some sleep! Lol.
I think I'm going to get him a couple of dvd's..don't know which ones so if you have any suggestions that would be great! And pop them in a hamper with some shortbread and rum balls and a couple of other goodies.

An good idea for a 14 year old nephew someone mentioned is ITunes gift cards. You can get them in different ammounts & he can download music, movies, TV shows etc with them. Lots of fun.

We like the bargain bin DVDs & CDs at BigW for Christmas presents. You can sometimes get 3 DVDs for $30 and that's pretty cool.

for a 14 year old, or other hard to buy for person.. maybe a personalised cd of "favourite songs"