Yes. You heard me. FORTY gift ideas – and not just the best present ideas from Crunchy Betty, but from all over the internet. All spread out over this week.
Last year, as a gift to you, I offered the free printable recipe cards for household and beauty recipes. This year, I offer you an abundance that you can give away (or make for yourself … please don’t be shy). We’re talking women and children and – yes – even men here.
To start with, we’re going to focus on the kids.
I’m your curator of crunchiness this week, so sit back, relax, and start making plans to go UBER natural and full of good old fashioned love this holiday season.
Remember, if you’re looking for ingredients to use in any of these gifts, first check your local natural foods store, and then turn to Amazon, Mountain Rose Herbs, iHerb, and Vitacost or another reputable online store like From Nature With Love.
Crunchy Homemade Gifts for Kids
1. Bath Bombs and Cookies
There are SO many variations on this theme, and before I ever started Crunchy Betty, I made my nephews bath cookies for Christmas. It was using a recipe similar to this one, only I “dyed” coarsely ground sea salt with a cocoa powder paste and then smushed them on top so they looked like chocolate chips. They were SO much fun, but be careful – they look an awful lot like real cookies, so don’t leave the younger kids alone with them. Nom.
Here are a few more bath bomb/cookie recipes:
- Milk and Honey Hearts
- Fizzy Bath Bomb Cupcakes (skip the sodium lauryl sulfate)
- Easy Bath Fizzies
2. Candy Cane Bath Salts
The recipe for these babies are down at the bottom of this post. Again, a gift I’ve done for my nephews, and they looked extra cute when they poured ’em in the bathtub and then splish-splashed around in the minty goodness.
3. Personalized Room Spray
Now, here me out here. This may not seem terribly exciting, but if you make an aromatherapy room spray for a kid with a certain “problem,” it can work wonders. I made some for my son once using rosemary, clary sage, and peppermint – all designed to help him study and retain information (he loved it). And for a child who has issues getting comfortable and sleeping, making a room spray with a calming scent like lavender or sweet orange can help them relax and unwind.
Here’s an easy-to-follow direction set on how to make a personalized room spray/air freshener (all you need is an essential oil or two, water, vodka, and a fine-mist sprayer bottle). Decorate that sprayer bottle just for the kiddo, and it makes it extra special.
4. Special Relaxing Massage Oil
One of my favorite childhood memories is of my mother coming in and giving me a “tickle back” before I went to sleep. You can take this to the next level by making your child a special relaxing massage oil to help them unwind and relax. To wit, though, this is definitely a better gift for the 10 and under crowd. Once they start growing up, the idea of their mom or dad rubbing their backs is … ew.
My favorite part about this gift: It helps you show extra love to your kids on a regular basis throughout the year. It’ll be one they remember again … and again. Aw.
Wild Roots has a wonderfully light massage oil for babies (and kids!) recipe right here.
5. Easy Peasy Lip Balm
Don’t underestimate the power of lip balm as a stocking stuffer gift. It’s the perfect time to give it – and by gosh and all, wouldn’t it be cute to personalize the lip balm tube or tin just for your kiddo?
I HIGHLY recommend making the Minty Chocolate lip balm for a kid. It smells delicious and , but it’s not so sweet that they’ll be licking their lips constantly.
6. Soapsicles
Turning clear, pure glycerine soap into adorable “soapsicles” is just about as easy as it gets. However, instead of using “fragrance” oil (as the instructions state), try using only essential oil. You can get lime and orange essential oils, but other fun scents would be peppermint, lemon, and even grapefruit. Also, if you’re going to color them, be sure to use plant-based food coloring.
7. Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix – OR! Hot Chocolate on a Stick
If you take this recipe here (which happens to be my favorite) and fine-tune it with something other than refined sugar – like stevia or sucanat – you’ll have a delicious treat for your kiddos that’s healthy, too.
Put the dry powder in a cute little jar, top it with homemade corn-syrup-free marshmallows, and it’s another perfect and very inexpensive stocking stuffer. Also? You’re allowed to snitch some.
But on that note, check out this “hot chocolate on a stick.” And then make some. And send them to me. Thank you.
8. Lotion Bars!
Of course, this list wouldn’t be complete without the super fun lotion bars we made here a few months ago. The key to making these super fun for kids is to find molds that make them giggle.
Here are links to some extra fun molds I found (including the ones pictured):
- Japanese egg molds in the shape of cars and fishes
- Japanese egg molds – heart and star and then rabbit and bear
- Music note silicone ice cube tray
- Butterfly silicone ice cube tray
9. Homemade Bath Paint (or even Bath Crayons)
What I like best about the bath paint recipe is that you can use a nice, pure castile soap (like Dr. Bronner’s Baby) instead of a harsher liquid soap. And if you find yourself some plant-based food coloring, you’ll have a wonderfully nontoxic solution to expensive bath paints.
However, if you want to get solid with the situation, try this recipe for handmade bath crayons – though make sure you’re melting down a bar of castile or pure glycerine soap to use as the crayons. (Remember when we played “What’s In YOUR Soap?”)
10. Scented “Rocks”
Yet another gift I’ve made for my son, these scented rocks are really quirky and enjoyable (but take a LONG time to dry … like three or four days). Here’s a basic recipe for them, but I think it would be fun to press in cutouts of fun shapes over the top.
For the record, these rocks do not look like what’s pictured in this recipe. And if you live in higher altitudes (like me), they’ll have a tendency to crack a bit when they dry.
Are You Making Gifts for Your Kids?
Outside of these unique ideas, have you come up with a homemade gift to give to your kids?
I’d love to hear it – and I’m sure everyone else would, too (for more ideas, yay!).
What’s your plan, Stan?
Here’s How You Can Skip Black Friday Madness
Thank you for this great list!
great and nice sharing, i really appreciated to share with us
Awesome site. Keep at it!
We made the bath salts for a couple of my daughters’ friends as a little extra something…had to immediately make some for my girls and they are currently soaking in some lovely sweet orange salts with just a smidge of jojoba oil. It was fun…they counted out the drops, and shook up each batch and got to pick which scent. Room spray is next! And more epsom salts for the mama and papa of the family:)
Good idea!
The spray is a great idea. Here’s my other take on it. My girls (and according to some of my friends with teen girls this is not uncommon) have taken on an obsession with purfumy things. EVERYTHING must have a scent…and large flowery scent. The problem is many of these scents contain crap loads of nasty chemicals. I’m going to see if I can get them into making their own sprays.
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This is wonderful, thank you for all these ideas! I am going to make mango&lime lip balms for Christmas for mu mum and aunties as well as eye gels and some home made rocky road sweets 🙂 Your recipes sound so cool, especially the cup cake bath melts, I will have to make those! 😀
This is wonderful, thank you for all these ideas! I am going to make mango&lime lip balms for Christmas for mu mum and aunties as well as eye gels and some home made rocky road sweets 🙂 Your recipes sound so cool, especially the cup cake bath melts, I will have to make those! 😀
I just hosted a class at my house yesterday morning. We made natural lip balms (75 in three “flavors” — no flavor oils, though) and healing salves (17 in two formulas — congestion relief and skin healing). Most are gifts. SO MUCH FUN!!!!
In secret (my 10 yo DD knew about all of the above and already claimed her fave), I want to make some of your awesome ideas above for her stocking.
I have a “pull-apart cake” silicone mold that forms a basket of flowers. Wondering how to make use of that since cake itself just falls apart and is incredibly challenging to clean. LOL If I only filled the cavity 1/3 of the way, I think they’d work well for the lotion bars. It’d be a good test for another lotion bar idea I have that uses more expensive ingredients, too. Hmmm… I also have some “candy molds” that could work. They seem a little too small to hang onto, perhaps? Or, perhaps not? I see a “scientist at work” experiment day coming… 😉
Thank you for all your wonderful research and sharing attitude! Lots of love to you!!!
My brother is 10 years old, and I’ve been wondering what the perfect gift would be. I’ve decided to give him some homemade tickets to the cinema. A trips that consists of a very cozy weekend at my place, lots of love and goodies and playtime and love! And then a trip to the cinema with our cousin Emma, who will receive the same gift.
I like that idea. Me and my family are making gift baskets and each one comes with chocolate and lip balm but that’s not all that’s in there.
I can’t wait to try the hot chocolate recipe! a couple of the kids on my list have dietary challenges. With a little tweaking, I think they can have this! They’ll be thrilled. Can’t wait to see what you come up with next!
My kids get a handmade gift each from both my partner and myself. This year I’m making them nightgowns, as they’re a novelty around here, and I recently purchased a pattern from Maya*Made for nesting fabric baskets that are so easy and fun to make, I’ve made 4 in the last 48 hours. Might have to “gift wrap” the nightgowns in a fabric basket? hmmmm.
Can’t wait to look though all of these and try at least a few! Thanks for sharing!
I wonder if instead of rock shapes if you could do cinn. eo and form gingerbread men with a cookie cutter? and make them into ornament gifts?
There are some great ideas! When my nieces and nephews come over they just love to make play dough!
I use:
2 1/4 cup of flour
1 cup salt
1 cup hot water
4 tbsp of sunflower oil (any oil)
1 Kool Aid packet (grape is my fav)
combine flour, salt and kool aid in a bowl stir in water and oil continue stirring until for get the consistency of bread dough. Then knead it for a few minutes on a floured surface. The kids LOVE making this
Sounds awesome!! Does the kool aid stain? Does it leave color on your hands?
It has never stained or left any color residue for me. It smells so good the kids always try to eat it but it tastes horrible. Not that I tried it or anything hehe
I make a very close play doh recipe! I also love this recipe because it doesn’t crumble like the store play doh, so I really don’t mind when my kids want to play with it, in fact, I play along!!
I licked mine just to try it. It was rather salty. No staining with my recipe either.
I made play dough with my little sister!
Except I used
1c. of flour
1/2 c. of salt
1 packet of KoolAid
3 Tablespoons of cooking oil (I used Vegetable)
1c. of boiled water
Add The flour, salt, oil, and KoolAid
Then add the water and mix!
BTW…Still loving the washing my face with honey. I haven’t had a breakout since I started doing this once a day and I used to break out all the time….
These are so pretty! You really have a way with making things look appealing. My Gifts class is tomorrow night & I’m definitely going to suggest everyone read this for more ideas. We’re gonna make fizzy bath bombs, but I never would have thought to make them cupcake shaped in a million years.
I’m making them a couple stuffed animals, my older one will probably be getting a super hero cape… but it hadn’t occurred to me to make bath/”beauty” stuff for them! Now to try to find the time to make them without them seeing…
Thanks for the ideas (and I’m SO looking forward to the others you have to come)!