Best present you received from a child…

My kids want to make their own Christmas presents this year. I was trying to help them think of some crafty ideas that could make. I wondered… what was a favorite homemade gift you received from a child? I know any handmade gift from a child you love is special… but did you receive something that was particularly wonderful?

My favorite present has to be a necklace I received from my daughter.  It is a heart made out of clay, painted pink and it has her thumbprint on the back.  It hangs from a ribbon.  I wear it every Valentine’s Day.

That’s a really hard question to answer. Since my children are in their late 30s and I have 7 grandchildren - there have been a lot of wonderful homemade presents over the years. I actually still have quite a few of them. A few that come to mind right away are:
1 - A can that my daughter made into a pencil/pen holder for my desk when she was about 5 (35 or so years ago. I had my own business selling things and Tracy took a vegetable can, removed the label and covered it with white paper. She then decorated it with the company’s name {Nana helped with the spelling) and then she decorated and colored it. She drew a face on one side - with buttons for the eyes, and decorated the rest with flowers and pretty designs. She glued a button border around the top and bottom edges. I still use it for pens and pencils on my desk!
2 - A clay flower that the same daughter made when she was 7. It formed it and painted it. It is on pipe cleaner stem. She put it in a wall vase that she also made of clay. That also hangs in my office.
3 - A free form clay vase one of my grandson’s made when he was 6. He also painted it. It sits on a shelf and holds my cell phone (He is now 18).
4 - An origami crane and elephant - one of my grandsons loves origami!
5 - A tiger one of my sons painted on a small wooden plaque when he was 10 (now he is 38). It hangs in my office.

I was about 18 or 19 when I made it, but one year I made my mom a scrapbook with poems about mothers and daughters and pictures of us matched up at approximately the same age. (Riding bikes at 5, going to school at 10, ready for a date at 15, etc.) When her house was flooded last year, the ruined scrapbook was one of the things she was the most upset about.

Oh Dana - that sounds like such a lovely gift that you made! If you have similar pictures or other ones - I bet your mother would absolutely love another one. I know when my oldest daughter (now 40) was a young teenager she wrote me a beautiful mother’s poem. I always kept it in my wallet and one day at work my wallet was stolen. It’s funny the only thing I really cared about was losing the precious poem. She did write me another one which I framed and have on my wall.

Last year at preschool, my son’s class all made glass votives that they glued a few squares of tissue paper onto. Then they dusted a small amount of glitter on them and the teacher sprayed them with gloss, which sealed the whole thing. It was really cute and tasteful. It actually looked like something you might buy in a store.

My son is still too young to make me a present, but I was thinking of helping him make calendars for gifts this year.  We could use photos and some of his artwork.  I’m not sure if it would be better to do printed calendar pages or use one of the photo sites.  Has anyone done this before?

I made a calendar through one of the photo sites and it turned out so good.  It was very easy.  They offer different background pictures and you just upload different pictures for each month.  My family loved it.  Good luck!  I think it is a great present.

I do like the calendar idea, mostly because I’m a scrapbooker and I’ve seen some really creative calendar projects in magazines. If you don’t want to do a regular calendar, you could try making one of those perpetual calendar things with the wooden blocks that you keep on your desk. Then, you can enjoy it year after year.

We’re going with food gifts this year. I have some good recipes for peppermint bark, cookie bark, chocolate and nut bark, etc. So, we’re going to do an assortment in a decorated tin. Easy enough for the preschooler to help with and not add too much stress for me.