Frugal Gift Ideas

I put on some Christmas Music this morning after having a talk with my mother...and I must say that it has definitely helped me with my mood! Praise Jesus! Things were seriously getting crazy around here!

I finally got the teacher's gifts done and halfway packaged up. Thank goodness, too! I need them by tomorrow afternoon. Nothing like procrastinating!

Anyway, here is what I've got..it's not a whole lot, but, we had a good time making them. And, I'm sure they will appreciate them, nonetheless.

I started out by making up a batch of Homemade Hot Cocoa. I used this recipe. I stuck with just the regular vanilla pudding, but I'm dying to try a chocolate or something else. Since this was so easy and turned out cute, I think we've decided to also give some to my sister in laws as well.

I scooped 2 cups of the cocoa mix (a total of 8 servings) into a ziploc bag, and taped it to green cardstock that I had laying around. I wrapped the card stock with a white sheer ribbon, and a deep green. I stapled those to the top, which in turn stapled the cardstock together at the top.

For the topper I took a white cardstock and a green vellum that was imprinted with holly decorations. I got this at the dollar store, literally years ago. I hole punched it and tied a white and a gold ribbon along with a tag telling you how to mix it.

I then decided to try to make a tag out of paper and felt. I've never in my life sewn on paper, and I must admit that it was alot easier than I anticipated. But, you can tell that I have a lot of room for improvement! The tag is made out of white card stock, green felt Christmas tree, and then the red is actually the piece of paper that was in the back of the package of green vellum! Nothing goes to waste around here! :)

Then, my favorite part yet today. Making marshmallows! Hey, if it's going to be a homemade Christmas, might as well make everything you can, right? I knew you could make marshmallows, but I had no idea how easy it really was. And fun!

The recipe I used came from Food Network, but I made my own minute changes. Little did I know, but I am out of cornstarch, so I omitted that and just used powdered sugar. Also, I'm an impatient cook...so I did not wait 4 hours for mine to set before we started to cut them. My daughter has been pestering me since we mixed these up an hour ago to cut into them. I finally gave in, because I wanted to taste them. It worked! They should probably set a little longer, so I only cut up enough for the picture. I really wanted star marshmallows, but my cookie cutter was HUGE. The only small one I had was a heart.

If I were to make them again, I would definitely experiment with peppermint or even chocolate. I'm sure the possibilities are almost endless here.

Some of mine are crooked..but they are awesome! Way better than store bought!

When these are done, I'm going to put them in a small baggy and tie with a cute ribbon and probably the above tag and add them to the loot.

I was originally thinking that I would also make pretzel rods dipped in melted carmel, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and toffee bits. I don't know that I will get around to that...but we'll see!

I also have a Glade Holiday Oil Candle holder along with one refill pack that, after coupons I spent a total of $1. I've got 3 teachers this year (Nicholas and Kaitlyn's teacher as well as Nicholas's gifted teacher), so I had to keep it simple so I didn't break the budget.