a good idea for a pressie for someone who likes cooking is to dry lots of herbs and present them nicely in a jars with a piece of ribbon round it or a selection of different herbs and spices in a box (cover with wrapping paper or decorate with old leaves, pressed flowers etc) it can be quite nice to write a recipe on a label to give them a start of how to use it, bay leaves, dried chillies, oregano, in fact you could probably put together a fab bbq marinade making kit or italian marinade kit much like the ones you see in numerous department stores on the run up to christmas but much nicer!! in fact lots of department stores seem to put together pathetic 'hamper style' gift sets when i'm sure the stuff we all produce at home is far superiour!!
i like to paint silly cartoons on things , or decorate them with dried flowers or decoupage, i quite often refurbish small items that i've found in skips or from freecycle. i got a hardly used wooden broom and painted cartoon chickens all up the handle for my friend sally and she was delighted.
if your're making pressies for teengers knitting or sewing phone/ipod socks is an idea
lastly the present i've been most pleased with recently was my brother and sister in laws one year wedding anniversary gift. i brewed some mead the week after their wedding (the "honeymoon" drink) and having cleaned up the bottle nicely with a proper cap etc i have written the reading i did at their wedding on the label, i've given them instuctions to lay it down till their tenth wedding anniversary (which from my experience is how long it takes for my mead to become really good). i thought it was a good way to link their wedding day to now and to the future. a friend of mine was given some "port" type home made wine as a christening gift to be layed down till her 21st birthday, it was superb! and i think a fantastic idea. ( and if your home brewing is bad you have 10-21 years to think of an excuse not to be there when the bottle is opened
)
the trick with all home made gifts is to have a good thought process behind it ,well that's the same for any gift really how many times are you given gifts that make you vaguely wonder if they wrapped up the wrong thing!
it's sad, because inevitably these gifts go to waste, or if you are me they end up on freecycle!! so if you know someone moving into a new home put together a collection of home saved seed which suits their new environment, be it salad to go on the patio, or a selection of herb seeds with a nice set of cleaned up and hand painted flowerpots to go on their window sill (see if you can bring them over to the ish darkside
) if they don't have a garden. .
the major thing with getting sceptics to be happy with home made gifts is really good presentation. i save pretty and interesting shapped jars when i see them especially for things i want to give as gifts, when i make batches of jam or chutney i always make sure one or two jars are particularly nice looking ones, through out the year i pick up "pretty things" as i see them, shells, pressed flowers, leaves, feathers, beads, bits of old ribbons, scraps of material etc, i'm always getting called magpie! but i stash them all away for when it comes to putting presents together so i can make them look really nice and dare i say it "professional"
ok i think that's probably enough now, i could probably go on for hours!
so the short list:
-"themed Hampers" containing home made pickles,dryed herbs, flavoured oils, jams etc
- repainted and refurbished and decorated second hand items (do it well and they'll never know!!)
- mobile phone socks/ipod socks
-home brewed long keeping wines to commemorate events
- home saved seed kits with pretty hand painted flowerpots to bring non ish people over to the dark side
mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha
jo
