Recessionista-friendly gifts

When I was a little girl, I would make gifts for my family every Christmas.  I was really famous for my yarn dolls, Kleenex dolls (complete with a shoe box bed), and picture frames with hand-made collages.  Now, as a 24-year-old woman, I still enjoy making gifts, and I still adore collage art.  The love for arts and crafts I had when I was younger has stayed with me, so I got excited when I came across these simple DIY gift ideas:  

This is a really simple way to spice up a gift card.  Take two postcards, photos, etc and either sew them together or tape them together if you wish.  I think this is great for personalizing something that is sometimes thought of as an impersonal.  

Here are some hand-made note pads.  The step-by-step instructions for this little gift idea are here.   And, to go a step further, you could even make a fun collage for the cover.  

Going off the notepad idea, I found these notebooks {via Poppytalk} that I think would be easy to make on my own.  I think a really special gift idea would be to make a notebook like this for a friend or family member and then, decorate some pages with photos, poems and/or quotes.  

I hope these ideas get your creative juices flowing a bit.  I can't wait to get back to California to all my art supplies and get cracking on some of these.  I'm feeling some homemade gifts coming on this Christmas!

XOXO, Amy

Photo {one}, {two} and {three}