Homemade Gifts

One of our favorite gifts to give to family and friends during the Christmas season are homemade hot coco jars.  It's super easy for the girls to make so it can be a present from them.  I love having them learn to give gifts early on and this is something that can be truly from them, since they can help make it.  Plus it's affordable.

I've shared this link before, but Eating on a Dime  has a great recipe.

This recipe will fill about 3/4 of a jar so 1 recipe = 1 jar gift.

We made 9 jars this year for our family and friends and spent about $20.00. Even with decorating the jars to make them more festive it didn't cost that much to do.

Here was our breakdown:

Jars - free (I just use old spaghetti jars, pasta jars, pickle jars, etc.) You can see my post for that here.
Dry Milk ~ $6.98 ~ I got about 9 jars out of one bag + I've made it a few times for ourselves. 
Coco Powder ~ $1.98 x 3 = $5.94 ~ You can get about 3 jars out of one container
4lb Sugar* ~ $1.78 x 2 = $3.56 ~ You can get about 7 jars out of one 4lb bag
Mini-marshmellows* ~ $0.99 x 2 = $1.98 ~ You can get about 8 jars out of one bag
Bows ~ $2.50/32 = (You could buy these the day after Christmas and save for next year too) ~ This set had green, red, white, blue & purple bows.  I opted to not use the blue and purple, which left me with 29 bows instead. So I could get 29 jars done, or use for my 9 jars and have bows for presents too.
Tags - free (I just download printable tags and let the girls color them) ~ This is optional, but it gives the kids something else to help make.  If you do have your kiddos make tags, depending on how many you do I'd divide up the tags amongst different days.  My girls got bored coloring after a few tags, so I'd just save the others for another day.  It's no fun if you're making them color :)
Construction paper ~ I usually buy a big pack at the beginning of the school year when school supplies are on sale. 

*bought when on sale and stocked up

Some of the items are things you can save again to re-use for the next year; such as the bows or construction paper. You can even freeze the marshmallows to use again, if you have enough will power. Mine always get eaten before the end of December.  

Well I hope this helps you out this season.  I know Christmas is already on Monday, but if you need a last minute fast gift, these are perfect!  Otherwise just pin this post and save for next year! 

This post includes affiliate links, which means if you click on the link I get a portion of any sales at NO COST to you.  See my disclosure page for more details.