Last week I had a brainwave to make personalised gifts with my little boy for some of our nearest and dearest. I thought that perhaps this would be more meaningful and heartfelt and at the least we could make some 'stocking filler' style gifts… so off we set to make some florentines. What we actually ended up with was cornflake chocolate crispy cakes. I was a bit ambitious I think, and I dropped half of them, but that aside, the whole thing got me thinking: There must be tonnes of creative gift ideas we could make together over the years… So here’s the outcome of my research so far… you can follow the HOW TOs for most of these ideas via my Pinterest Board, though many are self explanatory as they are. And of course the list would not be complete without a few photography related ideas too. 

If you end up making any of these, please let me know how you get on: add a comment below or post me a photo on Facebook, I'd love to see. xxx

1. Hand-print decorated bauble
We've done this for the past 2 years (Eddie was 9 months old and 21 months respectively) and this was pretty easy and quick to do (easier with two people). We bought a kit in John Lewis but I am pretty sure you could do this with paint you might already have in the house. Worth the experiment, I think. 

2. Hand-print family picture
Love this idea... fab piece of alternative, heirloom wall art which am sure any close family member would appreciate... could be done year after year to show the passage of time, and perhaps framed in a multi-aperture frame.

3. Photo book mark
Nice little stocking filler for all those book worms out there. Hopefully you've got an image I've taken for you which you can use :-)

4. Button Christmas decorations
I'm so inspired by this idea - great for developing dexterity and fine motor control and a great way to use up the box of spare buttons I keep for no reason! (And if you don't have any, you can buy bags of buttons from Hobby Craft (and probably lots of other places too)).

5. Handprint decorated apron
Yet another hand-print gift, you get the theme here... frankly this could be anything - a cushion cover, a tote bag, a tea cosy... 

6. I O U vouchers
You could purchase these pre-made downloadable vouchers which you print at home, from Etsy, or you could come up with some of your own ideas and get older kids to make the vouchers themselves. 

7. Photo baubles
Clearly, I love this idea! If you've had some Christmas themed photos with me over the last few weeks, this is a brilliant way of using them, a little something you can give all the family. Download the printable template for these baubles, grab your photos, and off you go.
  

8. Twig trinkets (and frames ;-))
Another great one for dexterity (though I might wait a year or two before I try this with my toddler). Love the twig photo frame - there's nothing quite like having your photos on permanent, physical display.

9. Hand-painted kitchen utensils
Lovely way to personalise something fairly impersonal, match the colours up to your recipient's kitchen decor, and let the kids get messy. 

10. Jar-art
There's loads of ideas of creative things you can do with empty jars... I've posted a few in the homemade Christmas gifts Pinterest board I've made, and I'll keep adding as I see more ideas.