After sharing with you some of most desired or most used items last week in my gift list I thought it was only right to balance it out with a bunch of homemade gifts. You see although I LOVE presents I am all about the homemade stuff. Whether its fudge, some sort of infused alcohol or a piece of paper covered in glitter and pom poms that my nephews have made – they would all make my day!

Also another great things about making gifts is that you can ensure people are getting quality ingredients, which is especially true when it come to foods type present. I love making hot chocolate mixes for people because I know exactly whats in it and exactly what is not (bye bye aspartame!) as I can’t bring myself to buy and be a part of keeping companies that produce junk going. Obviously I buy a few things, I am not a scrooge and I do get sucked into shiny paper and chocolate money, but in general homemade stuff is better all round to give to folks. Plus you guessed it – it saves you money so for me that means I can give more gifts to more people which is always a good thing in my books.

So here is my top 10 gifts to makes and some of what I will be making this year (avert your eyes family and friends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Cookies in a Jar. Simply take my spiced cookies recipe, and place all the dry ingredients (swap the 4 tbsp of raw honey for 6 tbsp coconut sugar as that is ‘dryer’) in a jar topped with the said amount of chocolate and write/print out the recipe and wet ingredients (butter) . Boom cookies in a flash!

2. Hot Chocolate. Make up this easy instant hot chocolate mix and plonk it in a jar and give to your friends. This honestly takes about 10 minutes and its a lovely treat. If you were going to make it really luxurious then you could grate dark chocolate into mixture too but to be honest I can never be arsed to do this as it taste great anyway.

3. Lemon Body Scrub. Simple ingredient mixed together , ideally in the jar you are going to gift it in. Feel free to use any other essential oil (I now get all of of mine from here as they are great quality) like lavender or peppermint and to use other oils like almond oil for added vitamin E but I tend to use olive oil as its so handy and super moisturising.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Bath Bombs. Now this is new one for me this year so I will let you know how it goes. I will be following and tweaking this recipe here and using cupcake cases for moulds as I couldn’t be faffed to by a bath bomb mould (??). I bought all the ingredients from amazon and am planning to make quite the fizz on Christmas morning:)

(Top tip do not add lots of water to get them to stick – I did this in my first attempt and it was bombed before it bathed…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Homemade Organic Moisturiser. Tip for making DIY gift sound fancier, call them organic:) Although obviously only if you using organic ingredients, in general anyway…
This is my daily moisturiser and can be used on face and/or body and scented with any oil you fancy. I am currently using a lavender scent moisturiser and its lovely.

6. Chilli Oil. Grab a glass bottle, shove some garlic, halved chillies in the bottom, fill up with olive oil and boom done. Super tasty chilli oil that is great for topping pizzas or as a dressing. Not a chilli fan? The stuff it with fresh herbs and garlic.

7. Bath Detox salts. Cant be arsed making a bath bomb? I can understand that so why not grab a pretty jar and fill it 50% bicarbonate of soda, 30% magnesium flakes and 20% dried rose petals for a chilled detox bath salt. Just tell the giftee they are to be put into a hot bath and soaked in for 30 minutes. Simple.

(And for a shameless plug and although not homemade booking yourself or loved one onto my Flourish eCourse starting on Jan 9th is a great to kick off the year and there is an early bird offer on now! Click here to find out more)

Ingredients I use

 

And when it come to homemade gifts it’s all about presentation, clean jars, ribbon, tags and lovely messages. But tell me what are you favourite homemade gift ideas?

(And if all else fails then head over to the lovely Nathalie Bond Organics shop – as its one of my favourite places for candles soaps and much more I forgot to put her on my list last week so don’t want you guys to miss out!:) )