Homemade Holiday Gifts & Ideas for Winter

Make homemade holiday gifts with these DIY ideas for winter in just 30 minutes or less. These easy winter crafts make the perfect DIY holiday gifts for bath and body lovers. Keep reading to discover two simple winter gift ideas, including an easy gingerbread man melt and pour soap recipe and fizzy bath salt recipe with essential oils.

This post is sponsored by Sticker You. All opinions are my own.

I have to admit I’m a Pinterest addict. I’m always scouring their site for new homemade holiday gifts and ideas I can create. Whether I’m gifting baked goods for the holiday season or homemade soaps, StickerYou always makes it so easy to customize my homemade holiday gifts.

Homemade Holiday Gifts & Ideas for Winter

Designing my own labels for the homemade holiday gifts I create for friends and family is so much more rewarding than simply picking up gift tags at the local big box store. It’s nice to be able to customize my labels so the gifts I give feel more personal. That’s why StickerYou is my go to for custom stickers and labels. They offer fair pricing and exceptional quality without me having to sacrifice the creativity I’ve invested in my designs.

I’m super excited about the labels I received from StickerYou for my gifts this year. And, as always, I’m equally excited about sharing new ideas for making your own homemade holiday gifts!

This year I created two super simple recipes. One for making melt and pour gingerbread man soaps. And another for a fizzy bath salt recipe for cold weather aches & pains or those winter sniffles. What really makes these recipes extra nice, however, is that you can make them both in 30-minutes or less. So order those supplies, schedule a weekend to get together with your family or friends and check off your holiday gift list!

Easy Melt & Pour Gingerbread Soap Recipe

Ingredients:

16 oz. SLS free honey melt & pour soap base
.25 oz. gingerbread fragrance oil
1/4 – 1/2 of one square of Crafter’s Choice brown sparkle color bar for melt & pour soap

Instructions:

Using a digital scale, weigh out the melt and pour soap. Cut into chunks then place inside a large, heat safe glass measuring cup such as Pyrex.

Heat in the microwave in 30-second increments until all of the soap has melted. Then carefully remove the soap from the microwave. (The glass may be hot so I recommend using a tea towel to help out with the task.)

Now cut your color bar in half or into quarters. Stir up to half of one soap color bar into the melted soap base.

Once the color bar has melted completely, weigh out and stir in the fragrance oil.

Place your soap mold onto a small cutting board. Now pour the melted soap base into all six cavities of a silicone gingerbread man mold.

Should you have air bubbles on the soap after pouring, you can spritz the soap with rubbing alcohol to pop the bubbles.

Carefully transport your mold with the gingerbread soaps to the refrigerator to cool.

Once your soap bars have fully solidified, remove from the refrigerator and unmold.

Now all that’s left is to package your homemade gingerbread man soaps as desired to give as homemade holiday gifts.

I packaged mine in white boxes with ribbon, then labeled them with 2″ round custom stickers from StickerYou.

Fizzy Bath Salt Recipe with Essential Oils

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sea salt (or Epsom salt for sore muscles)
1/2 cup baking soda
1/4 cup citric acid
1/2 Tablespoon green jojoba beads
1/2 Tablespoon carrier oil or vegetable glycerin
20 drops eucalyptus essential oil
10 drops tea tree oil (or peppermint essential oil for sore muscles)

Instructions:

Measure out the salt, baking soda, citric acid and jojoba beads. Combine in a medium glass bowl and mix well to ensure all of the dry ingredients are evenly incorporated.

In a separate medium glass bowl, add the carrier oil (or glycerin) along with the essential oils. Mix to combine.

Now pour the dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients. Use a whisk or a fork to combine the liquid ingredients throughout the dry ingredients until there are no clumps remaining.

Finally, spoon your fizzy bath salts into airtight containers of your choice.

I used a glass jar I picked up at my local craft store. However, low profile PET jars work well too!

Now simply decorate your containers as you like to give as homemade holiday gifts.

I used my custom stickers on the wooden lid of my glass jar and carefully trimmed off the excess with scrapbooking scissors. I then hid the edge with some colored pom pom ribbon. Although you could also use a gold or silver paint pen along the edge of the lid as well.

For my low profile amber jars, I wrapped a ribbon around the container. I then placed the stickers I designed onto the tops of the jars to hold the ribbon in place.

I really love how versatile the custom 2″ stickers from StickerYou are. They offered a lot of different ways to customize my gift wrap for my homemade holiday gifts. It’s also easy to apply these stickers to regular gift wrap on your holiday gifts in lieu of traditional “to and from” gift tags.

If you aren’t big on round stickers, you can honestly get any size or shape of stickers your heart desires – all to your exact specifications. Sticker You even offers tools that make it easy to customize your stickers or labels for your homemade holiday gifts. So be sure to check them out!

More Homemade Holiday Gifts

Looking for more homemade holiday gift ideas? Check out some of these other homemade holiday gifts and custom label ideas I created using labels from StickerYou!

• DIY Whipped Body Butter Soufflé & Exfoliating Whipped Sugar Scrub
• DIY Bath & Body Valentine’s Day Gifts
• Quick & Easy Holiday Gift Ideas

How do you plan to wrap your homemade holiday gifts this year? Be sure to share your ideas in the comments and have a wonderful holiday season!