Best Customized Gifts to Give This Season

I’ve made several customized gifts over the years for my friends and family. I think my favorite was my Bestest mom in all the land sign that I created with a stencil and barn wood for mother’s day last year. I also created men’s gift baskets one winter that went over really well. This year I pulled a full on Grandma and have already made over forty quarts of pickles to give away as gifts to my extended family. There really is just something far more special when its customized and created by you for your friends and family.

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When it comes to giving gifts, the more personal, the better. In a world where you can have anything you want shipped to your door overnight, gifts with meaning stand out above the rest. 

Crafting custom gifts that celebrate something unique about a person is one of the best ways to show your care. Here are some custom gift ideas to get you started.

Custom Artwork

Nothing says, “I care,” quite like custom artwork. Children have been bringing macaroni art home for years to share with their parents. It’s a gift that says, “I thought of you and made this.”

If you have artistic talent, attempting to create custom artwork from scratch can be a personal, one-of-a-kind gift. If you lack creative skills but want to give a custom piece of work to a friend or family member, you can have a bespoke piece commissioned in their honor. You can learn here about how that works.

When deciding what to create, choose something that fits their style or invokes a sense of nostalgia – whether it’s a painting of your shared favorite place or an abstract piece that pays homage to their love of coffee and books.

Recipe Tea Towels

Creating custom recipe tea towels creates an eco-friendly gift that’s both practical and sentimental. You can either share your favorite recipes or create tea towels using recipes from a late loved one. For example, capturing Grandma’s cookie recipe in her handwriting is an excellent gift for the people who loved her.

To create this gift, you will need to scan handwritten recipes into the computer and format them to fit a tea towel. You can then order the custom printed fabric from a supplier like Spoonflower to make it happen. It’s personal, affordable, and an easy DIY.

Breakfast Basket

Breakfast baskets are one of the most underrated gifts of all time. Not only do you provide a friend with the most important meal of the day, but it also allows you to support local bakeries and farmers markets. 

Get a reusable basket from the local dollar store and fill it with fresh baked goods and jams from your local bakery. If you’re feeling industrious, you can bake muffins and bagels yourself. Pair it with some of the recipient’s favorite tea or coffee and some fresh fruit. This is a great last-minute gift that’s especially appreciated during the holiday season when schedules are full, stores are closed, and meal planning falls by the wayside.

Home Grown Plants

Regrowing plants from food scraps is an excellent way to reduce food waste and give interesting all-purpose gifts. Experiment with different herbs and fruit. Citrus seeds, like limes and lemons, may never flower but grow into an aromatic potted tree. Place your sprout in an ornamental pot with elegant printed care instructions.

For an interesting twist on this gift, let the recipient take the reigns by creating an indoor herb garden kit. You supply the seeds, soil, and pot, they plant them and watch them grow. This is a great interactive gift idea for children that creates a learning opportunity as well as a sense of responsibility. Your parents will thank you for not getting them a noisy toy or a pet fish.

Homemade Blanket

You don’t need to have incredible quilting skills to make a blanket. There are a few simple DIY methods for blanket making that are simple and often free of stitching.

One of the most popular methods for customized blanket making in recent years is arm knitting. For this project, you need two arms and a wide, soft yarn. You use your arm instead of knitting needles and can create a full blanket in under an hour, according to this tutorial. 

Cut-and-tie is another method of blanket making. Get two large rectangles of fleece and place them together. Make small cuts around the perimeter of the fabric and tie them together to make a warm, cozy blanket.

The best gifts are the ones your family and friends remember years later – the gifts that keep on giving. Give them something that speaks from the heart and adds value to their life.