Don’t you just hate it when you run out of time or money before you run out of gifts you need to buy? That’s such a complete and total bummer, isn’t it?

Last Minute Christmas Gift Ideas

Happily, for crafters who maintain a sizeable stash of papers, yarn or other craft supplies, this sort of thing is almost a non-issue.

If crafting has taught me anything at all over the years, it’s this: if I have supplies left in my craft supply stash, and at least a couple of hours left before I have to present the gift to its recipient, I’ll never be empty-handed in the gift department. I’ll always have a gift worth giving, and it will be a gift created exclusively with the recipient in mind. (Except, I admit that I sometimes make a few extra give-to-anybody-type-gifts ahead of any gift-giving occasion, in case an unexpected long-lost relative or guest drops by for a visit.)

We’re getting dangerously close to Christmas, given that today’s date is December 21, 2022. I’d bet money that, by now, some of you are still stressing out about about what to give somebody-or-other.

Yikes!

I’m here to help you with some suggestions for last-minute gifts you can make using supplies that most crafters would typically have on hand.

Gift-Worthy Projects You Can Whip Up in a Hurry:

If you need to crank out a quick gift, hurry up and grab any of these free patterns or free project instructions from the Internet. Then raid your craft supply stash and get busy!

Quick Christmas Ornaments

See that cute little Christmas tree-shaped ornament pictured at bottom left in the photo posted above? You don’t need anything fancy to make this — the pattern is free on our website, plus you need a little green yarn, a little brown or tan yarn, some stuffing material, and a few buttons or beads for decorations. If you don’t have any buttons or beads, you could try cutting out some little felt or fabric circles to stitch to the tree. Or embroider some little ornaments using colorful yarn, embroidery floss or crochet thread.

This is a reasonably safe idea for a gift, considering that anyone who celebrates Christmas could probably use an ornament.

An even quicker ornament: this easy lace crochet wreath is super quick to make, and it’s really pretty, too. If you have a little ball of green yarn left over from another project, you have most of what’s needed to make this project. You’ll also need ribbon and a scrap of red yarn, or other appropriate baubles for decorating your wreath.

Pouches:

Pouches make fast, easy gifts (not to mention that they make fantastic giftwrap substitutes, if you run out of actual giftwrap.) The only potential problem with that idea is, you might not have the right zippers in your craft supplies stash — but if you do, this idea is definitely a keeper.

You can give pouches to people of either gender and any age; just customize the pouch accordingly. Bonus points if you can add a few goodies to the pouch, like wrapped candies, small toys, pencils or pens, to “sweeten” the gift.

Potholders and Kitchen Gift Sets:

If you have some appropriate yarn and a few hours, you can whip up sets of potholders, or kitchen gift sets, for the chefs on your gift list. If you happen to have red, green and white or off-white yarn in either wool or cotton, you could make cupcake potholders like the one pictured. No need to have these colors specifically, though. If you have any 3 – 4 cupcake-friendly colors of yarn on hand, you could re-color the design to use what you have.

You have a head-spinning number of options for different potholders you could make, so please check out our list of potholder patterns if this idea appeals to you.

Jewelry

For the ladies on your gift list, jewelry makes a great gift. Bracelets, especially, are pretty quick to make, and don’t use up many supplies.

Quick and Easy Last-Minute Scrapbooks

If you have pictures on your phone that your gift recipients would like, plus any scrapbooking paper in your craft supplies stash, you can make quick mini albums to give them as gifts:

• Either print out your pics using your printer or upload them to the closest 1-hour photo place. You’ll want to use them as the central focus of your mini album.
• Decide on a size for your mini album; 4×6 or 6×8 are good sizes, but you can make your album whatever size you want it.
• Cut your paper down to size. If you’re making a 4×6 album, cut your papers to 4×12″. If you’re making a 6×8 album, cut your papers down to 6×12″.
• Score down the center of each paper.
• Stack your papers on top of each other with the edges and center fold lines aligned.
• Grab a ruler and an awl or paper piercing tool. If you happen to have a book binding tool on hand, that’s even better, but it isn’t a necessity.
• Make evenly-spaced holes along the mini book’s center fold line to use for stitching a saddle-stitch binding on your mini album.
• Grab a needle plus some thread, crochet thread, embroidery floss or sturdy yarn and use these items to sew a saddle stitch binding on your mini album. To accomplish this, you simply stitch up and down with the threaded needle through the holes you already made in the center fold line on your pages.
• Now grab your pictures and some adhesive, and attach your pics to your album where you want them.
• If you have stickers, stamps, inks, ribbon, washi tape or embellishments, you can embellish your album however you like.
• You can also add journaling digitally by typing it on the computer, printing it out and attaching it to your album pages where you want it. Another option is to stick letter stickers or hand write your journaling. It is also possible to hand stamp journaling blocks and / or sentiments to add to your mini album.
• Voila! You now have a handmade gift that is more meaningful than anything you could have bought from the store. YAY!!

Christmas Cookies:

If you’re a passable chef, Christmas cookies are a no-brainer as a last-minute gift. If you have a well-stocked pantry, you can usually find a cookie recipe that’ll work. Even if your pantry isn’t all that well-stocked, look for a sugar cookie recipe that doesn’t require much more than flour, sugar, butter, salt, eggs and a flavoring like almond or vanilla.

So there you have it: Those are our best suggestions for last-minute Christmas gifts for crafters who are short on either time, money, or both. I honestly hope you don’t need this list at all — it would be ideal if your Christmas shopping is all finished, and you are now kicking back, relaxing and enjoying time with your friends and family. But if you’re still stressing about gifts for your inner circle, I really hope these ideas will be useful to you.

Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it! I hope you will enjoy every minute of your holiday.

Related Resources:

• Best Christmas Craft Books
• Christmas Patterns to Knit and Crochet
• Holidays and Special Occasions
• 5 Ways to Crochet a Christmas Wreath
• Winter Crafts

Is your Christmas tree looking a little bit bare? Or perhaps yours is beautifully decorated, but you want to make more ornaments to give as gifts to your friends and acquaintances this holiday season. Read on if you need some ideas for creative Christmas ornaments to knit — because I have suggestions for extraordinary knitted Christmas ornament patterns that I think you’ll want to know about.

If you enjoy knitting and crocheting Christmas gifts, you’ll want to get your hands on a copy of Arne & Carlos Favorites. This lovely book includes a spectacular selection of patterns for knitting Christmas ornaments, toys like the cute mouse pictured here, chic accessories, blankets, slippers and other items that make fantastic Christmas gifts. Click here to shop for the book at the publisher’s website.

This cute toy mouse is named Magnus. You can knit him, along with bunches of different Christmas ornaments like the one you see pictured here, using patterns from the book called Arne & Carlos Favorite Designs, published by Trafalgar Square Books

A couple of ultra-talented Norwegian knitting pattern designers named Arne & Carlos are the guys behind these incredibly beautiful Christmas ornament designs. I highly recommend their book called Arne & Carlos Favorite Designs, which includes their Christmas ornament patterns plus bunches of other Christmas and holiday friendly patterns.

You can use some of the ornament patterns to create round knitted Christmas ornaments. Some of the other patterns included in the book are useful for making small knitted birds that could either be toys, or Christmas ornaments, or other types of ornaments. Like, if you decorate for Easter, some of the birds could be Easter birds, too.

In addition to all the ornament patterns, the book also includes bunches of other fun patterns for gift-worthy items ranging from dolls to slippers to blankets.

Want to Learn More About This Book?

• You can Click here to check out our detailed book review of Arne & Carlos Favorite Designs …
• …Or click here to shop for this book at Amazon…
• Or click here to get more info about this book at the publisher’s website.

About Your Book Reviewer: Amy Solovay is a freelance writer with a background in textile design. She has been crocheting and crafting since childhood, and knitting since age 16.

This page was last updated on 12-20-2022.

Christmas 2021: Carta Bella Paper 6″ x 8″ Poinsettia Album Kit – 157 Piece Bundle

I went looking for the BEST DEAL on a Christmas photo album, and this is what I found: A Christmas scrapbooking kit that includes a photo album, page protectors, cardstock paper, alphabet letter stickers and a set of dies that says Merry Christmas — all for $19.99!

Are you in need of a Christmas-themed photo album for displaying your holiday photos — or for giving as a Christmas gift to a friend this coming holiday season? If so, I have a suggestion for an album kit I hope you’ll consider: It’s the Carta Bella Christmas Album Kit from Scrapbook.com. This kit is an AMAZING value for the money you spend on it — and it includes ALMOST everything you’ll need for putting your photo album together. (I say almost everything because it doesn’t include adhesive; if you don’t already have an archival-quality, photo-friendly adhesive on hand, you’ll want to make sure you also grab some of that so you’ll have everything you need for putting your album together.)

I went looking for the best deal on a Christmas photo album, and this is the one I ended up buying.

I think this Christmas scrapbooking kit is a truly fantastic value for the money you spend on it. But to be honest, I was a little skeptical about this kit at first, because I’m honestly not a fan of two-ring binders. However, now that I have this one in hand, I’ve had to revise my opinion; it turned out to be a LOT better than I thought it would be.

My first experience with two-ring binders was in the Middle East. All the office supply stores in the Middle Eastern areas I visited had full-sized two-two ring binders available instead of the full-sized three-ring binders I was accustomed to from my school days. The full-sized two-ring binders are not at all ideal for holding loose leaf paper that you use for school or work. My experience was that two-ring notebook paper is much more prone to tearing than three-ring notebook paper is. As it turns out, that third ring somehow seems to alleviate a lot of the pressure on the notebook paper. When using two-ring binders, I had to buy bunches of page reinforcement stickers to use for mending all the torn filler paper in my full-sized two-ring binders — a huge time waster.

So that experience initially soured me on the idea of wanting to ever use a two-ring binder in my scrapbook albums, which need to last much longer than my work notebooks do.

When I first decided to switch over to using 6″x8″-sized photo albums instead of the larger 12″x12″ photo albums I used to use, I initially decided to try a six-ring binder instead of a two-ring binder. The six-ring binder is fantastic! But the biggest downsides with them are the high cost and lack of widespread availability of the page protectors to use with them. I bought two of them, and then the page protectors for them went out of stock at the store where I bought them. I found another source for them and bought the last few packages that source had in stock. Then after that,
I discovered that Scrapbook.com has them in stock, but I decided to hold off on buying more of them in favor of trying a different style of album.

Honestly, I’d prefer to have a simple three-ring binder, but I haven’t yet found a 6″x8″ three-ring photo album I like. (If you know of one, please comment!)

But in this smaller album size — which is 6″ x 8″ — the two-ring binder turned out to not be a deal breaker. I think there are two things saving it from being a disaster:

• The page protectors you put in it are substantially heftier and stronger than ordinary notebook paper, and so they are less prone to tearing.
• Although the entire album ends up being heavy, this smaller-sized album isn’t as heavy as a full-sized filled notebook, so there’s less of a burden on the pages in this binder than there is on the paper in a full-sized two-ring binder.

I haven’t had this album long enough to comment on how it will hold up in the long term, but so far it’s doing well. It seems pretty sturdy overall. When it’s filled with layouts and photos, the album turns out to be heavier than you would probably expect, but so far the binder is holding them effectively.

In the end, I decided to give this kit a try because I thought the deal on it was too good to pass up. The poinsettia-print Christmas album alone sells for $12 and change, and the Christmas cardstock pad sells for $18 full price or $9.99 on sale. So for $19.99 total, with this bundle, you also get the page protectors, stickers and dies in addition to the photo album and cardstock pad. Overall, the bundle looked like it would be a really great value for the money, so I decided to give it a try. I’m SO GLAD I did. I liked this kit so much that I’m likely to go back and buy a second one.

The poinsettias printed on the album cover are lovely and festive. This print coordinates beautifully with the prints on the other products in the “Home for Christmas” collection by Carta Bella (which are sold separately). I didn’t buy any of the other products, but if you’re inclined to do so, those look super pretty and festive, too.

The cardstock pad that comes with this bundle offers you a varied selection of Christmas-friendly colors that are all totally usable (although they aren’t an exact match for the colors printed on the cover of the pad. In the cardstock pad I got, there are two reds shown on the color, but there aren’t really 2 reds; the one that looks like the darker red on the cover is really a brown — which is fine with me, as I find browns easier to use in my pages than the reds are).

Overall, this is really a fantastic selection of cardstock colors. The grays, browns and black are totally easy to use, even if you’re a beginner to scrapbooking. If you have cardstock left over when you’re finished putting together your album, you’ll find that these colors work well for designing everyday layouts in addition to your Christmas layouts. Aside from the greens and the one red color, the other colors are all highly usable neutral colors.

The black alphabet letter stickers come in a basic, narrow font. The font is a great size and shape for using on 6×8 pages.

The page protectors are high quality and attractive. You can get them as part of the kit, and you can also buy them separately at Scrapbook.com. The album will hold many more page protectors than the amount that comes with the album — so if you take a lot of photos during the holidays, I recommend picking up an extra pack of 30 page protectors. The page protectors are also available in packs of 10 in case you need a different amount. The album has a 2″ spine and holds bunches of pages. I haven’t tested its upper limits to know for sure how many it will hold, but I’m guessing it would hold around 50 filled page protectors, assuming you make pages that are relatively flat and not too weighed down with heavily textured embellishments.

The die looks like it will be really useful, although I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. In addition to using it for making your scrapbook album pages, you could also use it for making your own professional-looking Christmas cards to send to family, colleagues and friends.

Overall, I’m more than satisfied with my purchase of this Christmas photo album kit. If you celebrate Christmas, I’m delighted to recommend it to you, too.

Where to Buy This Christmas Photo Album Kit:

Click here to shop for the Carta Bella 6″ x 8″ Poinsettia Album Kit – 157 Piece Bundle — at Scrapbook.com.

Over to You:

Have you found a better deal on a Christmas photo album or Christmas-themed scrapbooking kit? If so, please give us the details! We’d love to hear about the Christmas-themed scrapbooking goodies you’re LOVING for Christmas 2021.

Also: If you have had any long-term experience with this album or with two-ring binders in general, how did it work out for you? Thanks in advance for any insights you have to share.

More Christmas Crafts You Might Enjoy:

Big Book of Christmas Crochet, Published by Annie’s

• The Best Christmas Craft Books
• Christmas Card Making Ideas and Instructions
• Festive Christmas Ornaments to Make
• DIY Christmas Card With Snowflake, Snowman and Paper Lace Doily
• How to Make a Snowflake Christmas Card — Free Instructions
• Beaded Christmas Napkin Rings — Free Instructions
• Christmas Knitting and Crochet Patterns
• More Holiday Crafts

Posted By: Amy Solovay

This photo collage shows bunches of different Christmas crochet projects. These projects are all current for Christmas 2021, and are ideal for Christmas gifts or decorating your own home for the holidays. Ideas include Christmas tree motifs, wreaths, Christmas blankets and more. These designs are all available as free crochet patterns on the Internet.

The holiday season is coming up quickly. We’re more than halfway through September, and next month is Halloween. Then the following month is Christmas, followed by the New Year.

Are you ready?

Now’s a great time to make a list of all the most important thinks you want to get done before the holiday rush. This is particularly important if you want to make holiday crafts. You can’t do everything, much as you might like to. Having the list prioritized on paper makes it so much easier to remember the most important things, and to not get sidetracked by less important stuff. Your list can also be a helpful motivator for accomplishing your most important goals.

So, what’s going to be on your list?

• Making a few Thanksgiving crafts for your holiday table?
• Making all your Christmas cards this year?
• Making unique Christmas gifts for your friends and loved ones?
• Adding a few cute handmade Christmas ornaments to your stash?

Our holiday craft patterns and tutorials could help you with any of these worthy goals. You’re invited to load up on patterns and instructions for any of the holiday (or other) craft projects we’ve posted.

Pictured Above:

• A little Christmas tree ornament is a quick, fun holiday craft project.
• Festive crocheted potholders could add a little cheer to your Christmas cooking and baking this year.
• A lacy Christmas wreath would be a stylish addition to your Christmas decorations.
• You could delight your Christmas party guests with pretty beaded napkin rings in red, green and gold (or any Christmas-friendly color scheme you like.)
• This puff stitch crochet Christmas tree is just the right size for making into a pillow front. Another alternative: You could use it for making blankets, throws or afghans.
• You can crochet two different alternating squares to make this eye-catching Christmas blanket.

Wishing you and yours the happiest, healthiest, most creative holiday season ever!

Blessings,

Amy Solovay