DIY Christmas Gifts for Kiddos

Looking for simple, inexpensive gifts for adults and kiddos on your Christmas list? Here is a round-up of the gifts I made over the past year for Sweet P, friends and family. Click on the links for detailed posts.

For Kiddos:
Felt Car Mat: By far my favorite item. This is easily personalized for any child on your list, made with a glue gun and doesn't take as long as it looks.


Felt Fish Magnetic Game: I love these little fish and they can be used for so many different learning activities (counting, color matching, etc.). Somewhat time consuming and tedious, but well worth it.


T-Shirt Quilt: Take your kiddos' old t-shirts (sports, etc.) and turn them into a keepsake! T-shirt material is super forgiving and again, if I can make them, you can too. The LSU quilt was my 3rd!


DIY Felt Food: By far the easiest and cheapest gift you'll ever make/give.


Hopefully these homemade gifts inspire you to make something homemade for your kiddos or other kiddos in your life this year. If you haven't noticed, I LOVE felt. It's super cheap and easy to work with (what's not to love!?).

Please comment if you try any of these projects! I'd love to see pictures!

Felt Mustaches

I saw these made out of scrapbook paper somewhere and thought they'd make fun stocking stuffers for my silly family. I had tons of felt scraps leftover from the Felt Car Mat so I used those and some skewers I found in a drawer in the kitchen to make these felt mustaches. You also need a glue gun, of course. Since I had everything I needed these funny little staches were free to make!

I freehanded the mustaches by doubling up the felt and cutting. It might be easier to draw the mustaches on a piece of paper first and cut them out to use as a template.

Then take the sharp end of the skewer and hot glue it to the back piece of the mustache. Line the edges of the back piece with hot glue and attach the front piece to complete the mustache. That's it! You're done!

Hold the skewer in your hand and bring the mustache under your nose to show off your new look.

Here's Sweet P showing off her mustache. She didn't make it into the group picture because it had been a long day of Christmas activities and she was beat (did I mention she woke up at 4:30am on Christmas Day?).

Bonus points if you can guess the video game in the background, a gift for my brother-in-law. He definitely had the funniest mustache, the brown one.

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Felt Car Mat

This was my final homemade Christmas gift for Sweet P and I must say I am super proud of how it turned out. We haven't really played with it much, yet, but I can't wait until we get going with it. I heard about this idea from fellow blogger Allison and followed her trail to find A Girl and a Glue Gun, which is where (as you can see) I found the idea and the mat was born.

I purchased felt by the yard from Joann's. I can't remember the exact cost because I bought other things that day, but I didn't even buy a complete yard (a half, a 1/4 and an 1/8th of 3 different colors). The rest of the felt came from felt squares (although they are really rectangles) I had or ones I bought at Hobby Lobby, Joann's or Michaels (because I HAD to have a certain color). The only other tools you need are a good (I mean really good) pair of scissors and a glue gun (and maybe a ruler if you're fancy like that).

This project took me several nights to complete and I'd say the hardest part was deciding on what to put on the mat and the road. I wanted to make sure it could grow with her and that certain places would still be significant in a few years. So without further ado, here is Sweet P's car mat. I still can't believe I made this.

**Excuse the wrinkledness, it'd been rolled up and shoved into a car for 12 hours.

Sweet P's garages: These are pockets that can store cars, figurines and other toys that can be played with on the mat.

Our farm: We don't have cows anymore, but I couldn't resist putting one there. I also added pumpkins, cabbage/lettuce and some carrots, a tractor and a barn in the distance (since it's obviously not to scale!).

Mommy's Weaknesses: The town wouldn't be complete without a coffee shop and a Target. Pretty sure those will still be in our lives for years to come. Once upon a time I tried to give up coffee. Still workin' on that.

The Park: Sweet P is obsessed with swings and I couldn't resist putting a soccer field. And the awesome Farmer contributed the soccer ball with the Nike swoosh (he even cut it out for me!). There's a pond and a tire swing, too.

Sweet P LOVES HyVee. For no reason other than the fact that they have a FREE (yes, I said free) mechanical horse that children can ride on. As soon as we pull into the parking lot she says, NAAAYYY!!!! That's him in the right corner of the store.

Here is the library, church and mall. There are also roads to Hobbs and Dallas (important roads around here!).

There's also a pharmacy, Trader Joe's (how could I forget a close up of that!) and the YMCA. The second hardest part was cutting those teensy weensy flowers, but I'm glad they're there.

And last but not least is a neighborhood. If you've been to my house, you'll know that the bottom left house looks very similar to the one we live in (I bought that beige color of felt for that specific purpose). We even have a big window in front just like that! Although, we don't have any neighbors with hot pink roofs.

If I had to estimate, this project cost less than $10 to make because I had most of the tools I needed. If you make a felt car mat, I'd love to see it! And I think A Girl and a Glue Gun would, too!

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