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| Fri, 12-09-2005 - 10:51am |
Heather,
i hope you don't mind my asking, but what are you putting in the baskets you are making? I know you said that they are costing under $5 to make. I could really use some good ideas, because while I thought I would have plenty of time to look for deals and make crafts and such, but things just keep happening one after another, which have prevented me from leaving the house pretty much. (Three weeks ago my oldest had pneumonia, then my dad was in the hospital, this week my youngest has been pretty sick and missed 4 days of school....argh!)
I was tempted on wednesday to spend $35 EACH on fruit baskets to be shipped to family, but came to my senses. (luckily)
Anyhow, I know you are very created, so I hope if you have a few minutes you will share some of your ideas with me. Thanks :)
Heather
i hope you don't mind my asking, but what are you putting in the baskets you are making? I know you said that they are costing under $5 to make. I could really use some good ideas, because while I thought I would have plenty of time to look for deals and make crafts and such, but things just keep happening one after another, which have prevented me from leaving the house pretty much. (Three weeks ago my oldest had pneumonia, then my dad was in the hospital, this week my youngest has been pretty sick and missed 4 days of school....argh!)
I was tempted on wednesday to spend $35 EACH on fruit baskets to be shipped to family, but came to my senses. (luckily)
Anyhow, I know you are very created, so I hope if you have a few minutes you will share some of your ideas with me. Thanks :)
Heather

Hi! Of course I don't mind your asking.
Unfortunately, most of the reason I'm able to do this is that I've been working on them all year. But never fear, after I tell you all the things you probably *won't* be able to copy, I will share a few ideas for last-minute baskets. :)
At yard sales, I've picked up candles, stuffed animals, and other odds and ends in like-new condition for under 50 cents a piece (usually closer to a quarter a piece), and those have formed the backbone of my baskets. I also found 2 soap-making kits complete with glycerin soap, fragrances, dyes, pearlizing mix, and molds, for $1 each, so I make personalized soaps from that.
I also have about 80 pounds of yarn (seriously!) that I purchased for 50 cents a pound. For a point of reference, those large skeins you buy at craft stores weigh a little over half a pound. So with that yarn and my knitting looms, I've made bunches of hats in colors and styles I know various people on my list like. I still have more yarn than I have room to store! LOL
Another thing going in my baskets is homemade apple sauce. My cost for this has been under a dollar (around 60 cents each), but again it's because I've been able to shop all year. I buy my canning jars at yard sales--150 for $20 recently, for instance--and I buy enormous boxes of overripe apples at the farmer's market for $3. That $3 box yields about 8 pints of apple sauce, plus enough apples for fresh eating and apple muffins for one to two weeks. Sure, we have to cut rotten bits off the apples, and blemishes and bruises, but you can't beat the price, and my kids aren't squeamish. Once the bad bits are cut off, the apples still taste better than apples in the grocery store. And the apple sauce (if I do say so myself) is to die for. I also bought my pressure canner at a yard sale for $15, but you can can apple sauce in a hot water bath without a pressure canner. Apple sauce is easy to make, too--you just peel and core the apples, slice them up, then cook with sugar and cinnamon until soft, then mash. Actually, we process ours through a juicer, then separate the large bits of peel (the small bits soften up and taste good in the sauce, so we leave them), then cook. But it works either way, and with the first method you don't have to have a juicer.
I decorate the baskets and jars of goodies with scraps of fabric and bits of yarn, so they end up looking really pretty. Each one has its own color scheme.
Okay, but none of that helps you, because you don't have time for any of that (bless your heart--you've had a rough year!). So here are a few things that might help you:
I've put 5-bean soup mix in pint jars with pretty fabric on the top (I use canning jars and lids and bands for this, which I already have on hand. The lids I have to buy at a discount department store, so they're a relatively high cost item, but because they can only be used once for a canning application, I wash them and then use the "used" lids for applications like this. I hope that made sense. LOL). This is especially cost effective if you have access to a health food store that sells dried beans in bulk, but I think you can do it cheaply even without that. Here is what you need to buy:
Dried beans, in at least five different varieties (choose a range of colors and textures and sizes)
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Celery salt
Pepper
In a pint jar, layer the beans in alternating colors to create an attractive pattern (you will use roughly 1/4 cup of each, but vary it as you wish). Place 1/2 Tbsp onion powder, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp celery salt, and 1/8 tsp pepper in a small bag, and lay on top of the bean mix. You can mix the spice mix in larger batches in advance, and then just measure roughly 2 Tbsp of the mixture for each batch of soup.
Close jar, using an attractive scrap of fabric between the lid and the band. Use colorful paper (even Christmasy pictures cut out of magazines can work), cut in shapes for gift tags. Write the following instructions on the back of a gift tag:
Hearty Bean Soup
Ingredients:
Bean soup mix
Spice mix
1/4 lb bacon or ham
2 cups water
1/2 Tbsp veg oil
1/2 can tomatoes
1/2 cup shredded cabbage (optional)
1. Fry bacon in stock pot. Drain fat. Deglaze
2. Add oil, bacon, bean mix, and water. Boil. Reduce heat and simmer 1 1/2 hours. Add spice mix, tomatoes, and cabbage. Simmer until beans and cabbage are soft. Serves 2-3 people.
Tie the gift tag to the jar lid, and place in basket (or simply distribute as a gift in itself). This ends up looking very pretty, and I've seen similar jars already assembled sell for $5-$8. Your cost will probably be less than 50 cents, especially if you have the jars cheaply. If you don't have pint canning jars, you can use mayo jars or pickle jars that have been thoroughly cleaned. Just make sure the fabric you use is very clean, because if you have a one-piece lid (as opposed to two-piece canning lids), the fabric will actually contact the food.
Another cheap but attractive gift is teas of various sorts. If the recipient has a means of brewing loose-leaf tea, this can be especially inexpensive. Simply package the loose-leaf tea in saran wrap secured with pretty ribbon and labeled something attractive like "Age-defying Thyme Tea" or "Soothing Chamomile" (you can probably come up with more creative names than that! LOL).
Also check out your $1 store. They usually have picture frames, which can make attractive gifts for family members when combined with pics of the children (prints from digital images are usually less than 30 cents each, bringing the gift's cost to $1.30).
You might also look up recipes for "friendship tea," which is made with cinnamon, orange Tang, sugar, and various other spices. It's really yummy, inexpensive to make, and can be packaged really prettily.
Another item to consider is cookie mix--flour and sugar are relatively inexpensive. Add a few garnishments--some nuts or chocolate chips, mixed in appropriate quantities, and write instructions for use on a gift tag. Package in pint jars (or mayo jars), and you're all set.
I've found a big part of the whole thing is the presentation factor. I have pinking shears (found at a yard sale--8 different styles for $2 total) that I use for creating attractive gift tags and labels. I use yarn to decorate the baskets (the baskets, by the way, I purchased for 25-50 cents each at yard sales over the course of the year--since you don't have time for that, you might consider using your own baskets that you probably have in various uses around your house, and then replace your baskets over the course of the year with yard-sale finds), and ribbon, and other odds and ends I have on hand. I've got jingle bells (yard-sale purchased) I use for some baskets. I make pom-poms and bows out of yarn for others. And a big part of it all is keeping the color scheme, to tie it all together.
I definitely have an advantage in having been working on this all year long, but I think it can be done if you think creatively. What do you have lying around that can be used for each element? If you don't have fabric scraps, do you have a colorful tee-shirt or pair of shorts that you don't ever wear any more that could be cut up for the purpose? If you don't have ribbon, do you have yarn instead? Does anyone in your family know how to do origami, and could make origami animals for some of the gift packaging? If you don't have baskets, is there something else you could use--how about clean, empty plant pots touched up with some festive paint and a ribbon? If you have plenty of fabric and a sewing machine, how about fabric gift bags instead? Even topless cardboard boxes can be appropriate if covered in colorful paper or fabric or magazine pages. Try to match color schemes and basket themes to the individual's interests. Where cartoon page-covered cardboard box packaging might be tacky if offered to your boss for Christmas, when given to the comic-strip buff neighbor, it might be just the ticket. The pink and purple fru-fru hat in one person's basket might be completely wrong in someone else's (one of my baskets actually has the pink and purple fru-fru hat, combined with a beany baby pig, some pink soaps, and a baby blue candle and a pink candle--just right for the recipient I have in mind, but all wrong for just about anyone else on my list! LOL).
The hardest thing I've come up against is men. Men are hard to gift. They don't care for candles, hats are mostly a practical consideration for them, and while they might enjoy the apple sauce, they probably don't think of it as much of a gift (after all, their wives buy perfectly good apple sauce at the store on a weekly basis, so what's the big deal, right? LOL). So we've come down to buying one small "guy" item for most of the family baskets. These have averaged out at $6-10 each, and significantly raise the cost of the baskets (obviously). But last year when we didn't have money to spend, we just shrugged and said, "tough--they don't like homemade apple sauce, too bad for them." LOL
Children are easy, especially if you know them fairly well. My four-year-old helped pick out most of the children's stuff. A lot of it came out of his own play room (I have marvelous friends who believe, like I do, that the best children's gift is one out of the other child's trove--and my son, bless his heart, had a ball deciding which toys to give to which children, especially after he grasped the concept that he needs to make room for all the things that he is getting for Christmas!). Some came from yard sales. Dollar stores are good too. For the neighbor girls, as an example, they each have a basket containing a stuffed animal (son's play room), a pretty, child-sized scarf (a fortuitous find--they came in a box of knitting that someone gave me in a whole other long story--but the moral is to keep your eyes open because giftable items turn up in unlikely places!), a handbag (yard sale), glitter lip gloss (clearance rack at grocery store--35 cents each), necklace (actually, mardi gras beads, had practically for free at yard sales across the country), and "wallet" (yard sale). In addition, they have a game wrapped separately that is addressed to both of them, and which came out of our own game closet. Oh, and the baskets contain a bird feeder each.
Which reminds me--projects your kids can make are great gifts for these baskets, especially for family and close friends who know your children. This year we made bird feeders out of pine cones collected in the back yard (collect them at any roadside location where there are pine trees). We bought peanut butter and bird seed. We slathered each pine cone with peanut butter, rolled it in bird seed, then attached ribbon (actually, I think I attached the ribbon ahead of time, now that I think about it). We wrapped each one in saran wrap and labeled with instructions. This was messy, but fun. You can also try salt dough ornaments--google the recipe--which are very cheap to make and fun for little hands.
So, I know that was really long. I hope something in there is helpful. I wish I could say that I just threw them together at the last minute for that price, but it really has been a year-long effort. Still, this is the first year I've done it quite so efficiently, and even in the past I was able to keep my costs down significantly even with just the few ideas that I could apply at the last minute.
Good luck and let us know what you end up doing. Don't forget that you can also gift people with things of your own that you have enjoyed but no longer need. Some people are more open to this kind of gifting than others, but in some cases if the item is in like-new condition, they don't even need to know. Oh, and another great gift for grown-ups is cuttings of your own plants, packaged prettily in a nice pot (or a cheap pot dressed up with ribbon or fabric). If you have any of those vining plants that grow like crazy and root really easily, this is a great source of house plants as gifts.
Oh, and a good place to get little stuffed animals (think, beany-baby type) is thrift stores. I've found them in like-new condition for $1 (for big, fluffy ones) to 50 cents (for beany-baby type).
Hope that helps.
Heather
Heather,
thank you!!!
I am going to shop some dollar stores this afternoon and see what i can come up with.
I am so glad that I had the sense to empty my virtual shopping basket the other day..it had already added up to $160, and that was only for four people. lord knows i can't afford it, but convenience wins over my money too often when it comes to things like this.
I think i will try the jars with cookies and maybe even brownies. Bean soup won't go over in my family, but maybe i can find another soup recipe that will. I figure that even if I do the baskets for under $10, I am probably going to save at least $12 per person.
My goal is to have everything I need that has to be mailed out ready to ship Monday. I can shop for people here later on in the week, when i have the cash (We both get paid Thurs.)
Anyhow, thanks so much!!! I think it will be fun!
Heather
just thought i would throw in my two cents here! I am making jar gifts this year and there are soooo many ideas! I decided to go with hot chocolate mixes. Here is one I found:
http://www.recipezaar.com/46942
I found a peppermint flavored creamer and used that in it, and it was yummy!!! (made some for myself.) another idea for smaller gifts (like for teachers or mail-persons, or bus drivers) is a mug -from the dollar store!- filled with hot chocolate mix. You can simply put the hot chocolate mix in a bag, tied with a pretty ribbon and place it in the cup.