a ton of Christmas gift ideas

{from the stores}

{Bird Cage hanging lamp} I'm a sucker for unique lamps and birds. {Love Me Tender cookie cutter set} How much fun are these? I love the owl and the dinosaur ones the most! (duh)

{Owl Hottie} When I'm cold, I'm coooold. This is such a cute way to warm up. {Sparkle Tree} I want to get another tree for the new house and having one that's in a unique colour would be so much fun. You could leave it undecorated and it would still be festive.

{Farmer's Egg Crate} I love this a lot more than just keeping eggs in their box. It makes it easier to grab one egg out of the fridge without having to pull the whole box out plus it looks pretty. {Pomegranate ornament} Pomegranates are traditional Greek home decorations. Idle Husband's mom has over a hundred different types of pomegranate tchotchkes all over her house. It's rare to find decorative pomegranates here, so when I see a nice one, I immediately want it.

{Magnetic Timer} Sometimes it gets kinda crazy in the kitchen and I really wish I had an extra timer. I love that this one is magnetic and yellow. {Twiggy Serving Set} We have a salad at every meal (except for pizza night!), and I'd love to have a nice serving set instead of using a spoon and my fork.

{Holiday nailpolish set from Superstore} in imperial, dupioni, and midas. I love dupioni! I'm wearing it right now.

A Bulk Barn gift card. I hadn't been there for quite some time, but I was looking for some specific cookie cutters and remembered that they have a lot of kitchen things, too, so I thought I'd check it out. While there, I noticed they have gift cards and I thought, who the heck would want a gift card to the Bulk Barn? But then I really thought about it and you know what, any keen baker or cook would probably die and go to heaven if they got a Bulk Barn gift card (I would!). Some items that tickled my fancy: unique concentrated extracts in flavours like root beer and watermelon, magnetic spice jars, fancy peppercorns, peanut storage jars, cake decorating essentials, and (of course) cutesy cookie cutters (they had birds!).

{homemade}

Foodies

I haven't made any of these recipes, so I can't attest to their success, but they all looked really easy and really yummy. So here are the recipes I bookmarked as possible homemade gift ideas for the people in my life and they might inspire you, too:

balsamic onion marmalade

burnt sugar lollipops

cranberry and pistachio white chocolate bark

fruitcake cookies

maple bacon kettle corn

hot pepper jelly

chocolate vodka

coffee vanilla bean liqueur

uniquely flavoured popcorn balls
preserved lemons (I came across a bag of clearance lemons and was talked into getting it on the presumption that I'd be sharing the bag. But then I ended up with the whole thing, so I was whining about what to do with a whole bag of lemons and then I remembered this easy recipe. So I'm currently preserving lemons, but I haven't actually used them yet. They'll be ready January 1st.)

Some tried and true recipes in case the above didn't work out (you gotta have a back-up plan!):

marshmallows (flavoured with peppermint, coloured red and green, or plain)

granola (with pistachios and cranberries instead of almonds and raisins)

Crafties

I really like choosing an ornament to make each year to add as part of the wrapping decoration for the main present, but this year (because of time constraints), I decided to just do an ornament, so you'll notice some diys for ornaments in this list, too.

onion bulb paper ornaments These feel very Mad Men to me.

modern paper ball ornament This would be a really interesting display if you made a few in different sizes and clustered them together.

I was once gifted a paper star made from old Christmas cards and it's one of my most treasured Christmas display items (even though I've had to reglue it a few times).

recycled paper notepad I love the idea of mixing a lot of different papers to create a really unique look. Maybe some graph paper, coloured paper, even old children's books cut up. You could get so creative!

leather bracelets These look so amazing! Someone would be super impressed to know you made it yourself!

fox lamp Or any animal! Too cute!

missing glove squirrel So cute and quick and easy! It could also be transformed into a bear, a dog, or a cat with a few tweaks to the tail, ears, and details.

cement planters Who couldn't use a modern pot? They're so hard to find! I would definitely consider adding a saucer if I were to do this, though. You could probably use a plastic lid slightly larger than what you're using for the pot to help mould the cement. And it might be easier to put some holes in the container bottom and then pop some straws through (to keep the cement in) for drainage instead of drilling through the concrete afterwards. Also consider adding a plant with this gift. Perhaps a Christmas cactus, pointsettia, or amaryllis?

Another craft idea coming later!