What Homemade Christmas Gifts We Love to Give
For the past few years, I have embraced the process of slowing down and making homemade Christmas gifts for our extended family.
In 2019 we made lip balms, rice hand warmers/ neck warmers and book marks with our pressed leaves for grandparents.
This year, 2020, we did beeswax candles, homemade hand lotions as well as the fan favorite, lip balms. Many of our family members have mentioned that they love our lip balms so much, they end up scraping every little bit out of the containers when the end is near.
All Natural Homemade Lip Balms
Often the kids and I make all natural homemade lip balms for our homeschool handicraft fair. This past year our girls also made doll blankets, which were well received. It is one of our favorite events to do each season.
I haven’t put together our recipe yet, because I had been taking video. I got overwhelmed with a lot going on and deleted all the footage! Whoops I will in document it the future and write up a recipe. This one comes close.
Hand Poured Beeswax Candles
I wanted to gift beeswax candles this year. The warm glow of an unscented beeswax candle, with its hints of honey and no additional toxins going in to the air is a win for me. They actually help purify the air as they burn and help release negative ions which neutralize air pollutants!
Mason jars were hard to come by with the 2020 shortages. I found a few small ones but also repurposed some jam jars. (Side note: the Organic Raspberry jam from Aldi, and some warm brie is sooooo good. The jam jars are from that jam.)
As with pretty much anything I make, I pull from a few different sources for a recipe. I haven’t written my own recipe yet. So if you would like something similar, check out Lisa’s recipe over at her site.
Two important things to be mindful of:
- Wick size varies depending on the size of your containers. If the wick is too small, the candle will “drill down”. Check out this post for help choosing which size is best.
- If pouring candles in cold weather, warm the jars a bit in the oven. (Around 175 degrees Fahrenheit) This helps avoid having it cool faster on the outer edges, leaving a slanted hole in the middle. If that does happen, you can just top it off with a bit more wax the next day. Another thing you can do to avoid this is put the poured candles back in the oven to cool down at a more stable overall temperature over night.
One last tip about making beeswax candles has to do with the clothespins you see in one of the photos. I hot glued the wicks down in to the jars and then used these to help keep the wicks centered.
I also made some dipped candles for our advent wreath which are pictured below.
Homemade Christmas Gifts: Hand Lotion
For the hand lotions I used Kendra’s recipe that she shared on Instagram. I made a variety of fragranced jars depending on who they were for. For sister-in-law’s, it was a blend of Frankincense, Lavender and Citrus Fresh. The uncles got Evergreen Essence, Cypress and Patchouli.
It is a nice touch to personalize them to what you think will suit or serve each individual person best. I used all Young Living essential oils so that is an added bonus for skin as well as a little boost depending on what the mix was.
Kendra’s recipe is super simple. The only issue I had was my house was cold and drafty as they set, so some of them need a little stirring, but otherwise I really like it. I’ll continue to make our own lotion with this recipe.
For the tags, I used Canva and packaged everything up with a rustic theme of gift bags and yarn/ twine. Slipped in our photo Christmas card and we were all set! Homemade gifts that everyone can use.
Do you enjoy making gifts? I find it very rewarding to be able to give something I put work in to. But I also like to make things in general. I like being in control of the ingredients that I use in things. If you are a maker as well, you may want to check out this Homemade Hair Gel Recipe. It is super simple with great results!
Looking good Kiddo.
Thanks for all the help!