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I remember walking into my kitchen and seeing it lying on the counter. It was beautiful. It was wrapped in paper painted with my daughter’s tiny hand prints, and tied with red yarn and a yellow rose from my own garden. Inside was a picture of my two-year-old and me, in a wooden frame that she had painted herself. My eyes began to tear with the realization of the time, attention and love that went into this creative birthday gift.

Creative birthday presents that are handmade by small children make perfect gifts. There are many wonderful ideas that are easy, inexpensive and fun. For babies, toddlers and small children the most personal thing they can create is a hand or foot print. With one of these print projects, you can create special gifts that are memorable and cherished.

First, you need to make some prints.
You will need;

o Old baking pan for your paint
o Washable, non-toxic paint
o Sponge or brush
o Art paper or roll of paper
o A basin of warm, soapy water

For feet, brush or sponge paint on the foot, or dip the foot in the paint. Stand the baby on the paper, lifting the child up and down. A toddler or small child can actually walk on the paper.
For hand prints, you can paint the hands or let the child “grab” the paint themselves. Help them press, and then lift their hands on and off of the paper.

After you’re finished, use the warm, soapy water in the basin to wash off the paint.
Once you have a few “good” prints, let them dry completely and then cut them out. Save your originals and color copy the best prints at your local print shop or on your home printer. These copies are easier to work with and allow you to make multiple creative birthday presents.

Once you have your copies, use the prints and a little creative writing to;

o Glue a print and a birthday wish on the inside cover of a homemade picture or music CD.
o Decoupage the print(s) on a finished piece of wood or ceramic tile to make a plaque.
o Using card stock or construction paper, use prints to make homemade birthday cards.
o Scan the prints and use iron-on transfer paper to create personalized t-shirts, aprons, sweatshirts, pillowcases, etc.
o Frame the print(s), and add the special date in calligraphy

You can also make homemade wrapping paper. Wrap presents in large finger-paint pictures or large pieces of rolled paper that the child has freely painted with their hands or feet. For more fun, play music and ask the children to “dance” on the paper with their painted feet.

Use twine, yarn or ribbon to tie the gift wrap. Cut out a print, punch a hole near the top and thread it through the ribbon for a matching gift tag.

Crafting these creative birthday presents is a great way to spend quality time with your child. The result is a unique keepsake that really shows how much you care.

December arrives, the weather takes a turn for the worse, relatives’ and loved-ones’ Christmas lists arrive by the dozens, and since you’ve grown up, Santa doesn’t seem to be pulling his weight. All in all the winter months have a tendency to be a time to dread rather than a time for cheer.

Once again, however, technology has come to our aid. Now, instead of trawling around the shops, weighed down by bag after bag of presents, Christmas shopping is no further than a mouse-click away. From the comfort of your own home you can purchase a set of floral tea towels for your dear old Nan and a new Nintendo Wii for your favourite Nephew (or the other way ’round!) all from the same source – the Internet.

With the ease of the process, and increased user familiarity with the Internet, it is little wonder that online Christmas sales figures have soared in recent years. Indeed, one national newspaper estimated a record-breaking £14bn worth of Christmas shopping being spent online in the UK this year – making the UK Europe’s most dedicated online shoppers during the festive period.

However, like the risk of buying your dear old Nan a games console, the reception of the gift is something the Internet cannot guarantee. And so not all the money spent this Christmas will have been money well spent. A recent survey showed four out of five people are likely to receive presents that they either don’t want or don’t like, while Abbey Bank estimated the total money spent on unwanted or novelty gifts this Christmas as being a whopping £1.3bn.

Again, however, the Internet has come to the rescue; working from the belief that ‘one person’s rubbish is another’s treasure’ (or that one person’s weird white box with a weird white stick is another’s prized gaming machine), people up and down the country have started using online UK classifieds as a way of sorting out the problem of unwanted Christmas presents. Rather than braving the shops during the January sales in order to return unwanted items to a variety of stores that may only offer an exchange for something else that you don’t want, online classifieds offer users the opportunity to sell all of their unwanted gifts – again from the comfort of their own homes.

It could be said, then, that with the help of UK classifieds and the Internet, Santa Claus can work right into the New Year, making unwanted presents, wanted.