10 Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas for Teens

It is very easy for Christmas to get out of hand - too many gifts, too much money spent, too much time on decorating and shopping and not enough time spent doing the things that really matter.  I have recently been brainstorming ideas with a friend who finds herself without much money this year.  My friend has teenagers at home which makes it extra difficult to scale back.  It occurred to me that there might be others who would enjoy the ideas we came up with and that I found on-line.  Maybe we would all enjoy Christmas more if we scaled back some and focussed on the important things of family, friends, fellowship, and the real reason for Christmas.

I started writing up the post and realized that there were actually a lot of ideas so I'm going to highlight different aspects over the next week.   The focus will be on teens and Christmas as that age group seems to be the most difficult to shop for and to entertain, particularily if you are trying to do it on a tight budget.

I am going to start this series with ideas for homemade gifts.   Personally, I love making at least one or two handmade Christmas gifts every year.  It somehow makes me feel like I've put my heart into gift giving and been a bit thrifty as well.   As it isn't easy to think up homemade gifts for teens, today I'm going to share with you ten ideas that I have found on-line or have made myself - 

1)  Decorate storage containers to match their room's decor or reflect their interests.

   Martha Stewart 

2)  Create these pretty accessories for a jewelry box.

Martha Stewart

3)  Make a photo scrapbook or calendar of things your teen has done during the past year or from when they were young (you can see my post here about using Smilebox to create a photo calendar).  I had my calendars colour photocopied and then a cerlox binding put on so the total cost for each one was just under $10.

4)  Knit some fingerless gloves (you can find the pattern to make the gloves in the picture below here).

 Thrifty Fun

5)  Crochet, knit, or sew covers for electronic devices, such as cell phones or MP3 players (you can find the knitting instructions for the picture below here; or another one here; and how to sew the one below here).

6)  Make a jar of homemade trail mix - mmm - yummy and healthy! Or give coupons for homemade cookies every month - the gift that keeps on giving all year long.

7)  Make a neck wrap cooler (see here for instructions).

Little Birdie Secrets

8)   Make a music CD.

9)  Decorate a journal,  notebook, binder, or clipboard (you can find directions and inspiration for binders and notebooks here and clipboards here).

Arts Crafts Blog

Echoes of Laughter

10) Collect tried-and-true family recipes and either write them up on the computer and print a cookbook or even better, for the electronically-minded young person, give them a memory stick with the recipes on it.  Using the memory stick has the advantage that new recipes can easily be added.

And finallly, stay tuned for the gift I'm in the process of making.  I'll be blogging about it in the next week or so (whenever I am done).  Here's a sneak peak:

Anybody have any other ideas for homemade gifts for teens???  I'm all ears (... so to speak).

Tune in tomorrow for creative ways to give gift cards and cash.