5 Quick and Easy Last Minute Gifts you Can Make with Items from your Kitchen

It is the Saturday before the last week of school for the kids prior to Christmas break. My mission this weekend is to get all the kids’ teachers and bus drivers gifts ready!

Not only do each of my three school-aged kids have one teacher in their class, but there’s at least one other helper and/or a student trainee in each class: we’re looking at making at least ten gifts altogether! These individuals spend more time with my kids each day than even I do and it’s my pleasure to give a small thank you gift to show our appreciation.

At the same time, our home budget is tight this holiday season. I’ve decided to look around my home and make gift using supplies that I largely had on hand. Here I’m sharing five gift ideas you can make using items from your kitchen. These gift ideas were inspired by our recent Simple Daily DIY challenge and you can find additional handmade gift ideas in this post.

We’ve created this overview on our YouTube channel, but if you’d like more details on how to make each, we’ve created full-length video tutorials in our latest class on Skillshare which you can access for free here.

We also provided free printable gift tags here and a nature-inspired printable greeting card template here to add to your gifts.

1. Share your favourite cookie recipe in a jar

Recipes-in-a-jar type of gifts are great because, 1) who doesn’t love cookies and 2) who doesn’t love saving time to make them? The trick is to add all the dry ingredients in appropriate measures and then add a recipe tag with instructions for the rest of the ingredients needed. You can use your favourite cookie recipe or try this homemade brownies in a jar recipe from Melissa K. Norris blog.

2. Plant some succulents or other plant clippings into tea cups/mugs

Do you have mismatched tea cups or mugs that you don’t use anymore? Maybe ones with chips on them. Or else pick up an inexpensive set at your local thrift store and use them as a container for small plants such as succulents or clipping of other plants you already have at home. Ideally you want to plant any clippings a couple of weeks before to make sure they’ll take.

3. Make a simple luxurious peppermint sugar scrub

There are so many amazing sugar and sea salt scrub recipes available online. This is a nice “pamper yourself” gift idea on it’s own, or pair it with a magazine or gift card to a bookstore.

4. Make inexpensive gift containers with empty coffee tins and burlap

You don’t need to spend a lot of money on baskets or Christmas tins. If you’re a coffee drinker like us, you likely have some tins that can be upcycled to a decorative gift container. For example, embellish a 2’x2′ piece of burlap with stamps and then glue it in into a cleaned, empty coffee tin!

5. Create DIY themed gift baskets

Now that you have some handy containers, fill them with four or five items that fit a theme. For a baker, you can add a tea towel, wooden spoons, cookie cutters and a dish drying mat. Or add a box of tea, a small jar of honey, some homemade cookies and a lovely mug such as one from our nature-inspired collection for a tea-themed gift basket. The sky’s the limit! Just look around your kitchen and see what pieces you can put together for a fun gift idea.

We hope these ideas have provided some inspiration for your handmade gift-giving plans. If you’d like step-by-step video instructions for these DIY gift ideas just head on over to our class on Skillshare. You’ll also find a printable project guide to help with your creating and access to our class on making greeting card gift sets.

Are you all set with your Christmas gift-giving?