Three easy holiday gift ideas for students

It’s the holidays, and you’re a student. Ipso facto, you’re probably dirt poor. Try giving your family or friends one of these charming gifts — you’ll save money, and the recipient will delight in getting something personalized and handmade.

Salt dough ornaments

These make great present-toppers, and you can get everything you need with a quick raid of your mom’s kitchen.

What you need:

– 1 cup flour
– ½ cup salt
– ½ cup water
– Rolling pin
– Cookie cutters
– Cookie sheet
– Acrylic paints and ribbon (optional)

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 250 F. Mix the ingredients together and pat them into a ball. Roll the dough out onto a well-floured surface until it’s about a quarter inch thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out the ornaments, and poke a hole in the dough with a toothpick if you want to be able to hang it up. Place the ornaments on a cookie sheet and bake for two hours, until stiff and dry. Once they’ve cooled, paint and decorate.

The dough can be sticky and hard to work with at first, so use lots of flour. You can use a [what?] to give them texture before you bake them – experiment with items like pencils, cutlery, toothpicks or rubber stamps. Try rolling out the dough in thin strips — thicker dough can puff up.

Boozy (or not) hot chocolate kit

This is a great gift to give to the average Vancouverite: it comes in a mason jar, contains a reasonable amount of chocolate and alcohol and it looks pretty. The following ingredients make enough for one 16-ounce serving. All you have to do is layer all the ingredients in a jar, and include a set of instructions.

What you need:

Mixture:
– ½ cup cocoa powder
– ½ cup granulated sugar
– ½ teaspoon cayenne
– 12 pods of cardamom
– 3 cinnamon sticks
– 1 fresh vanilla bean, split in half
– 8 oz. chopped chocolate
– 1 cup marshmallows

Alternatively, you could just use a premade hot chocolate mixture with added marshmallows and cinnamon sticks, but where’s the fun in that?

Assembly:
– 1 16 oz. wide mouth jar
– Parchment paper, twine or string,
– Labels and other things for decorating
– Small bottle of Baileys (can be omitted for the non-drinker)

Include the following instructions with the “kit”: Remove the marshmallows and set them aside. Heat four cups of milk with all the other ingredients over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is melted and sugar is dissolved. To serve, pour into mugs and add the marshmallows. Enjoy!

DIY wine charms

You might need to take a quick trip to the craft store for some wire and beads, but if you’ve got some lying around you can make a set of eight wine charms in about an hour.

What you need:

– Craft wire
– Beads
– Needle-nose pliers (tweezers might work, or very small, strong fingers)
– Wire cutters

Instructions: Bend the wire into almost a complete circle (leaving room on the ends), string on the beads, and use your pliers to curl the ends back and stop the beads from falling off. You can use the trial-and-error method to bend the wire freehand, but using something round, such as a small glue-stick, will help produce the proper shape. It also helps to have a wine glass handy in order to test out sizes and shapes.

If you’re buying wire, try Michaels craft store; make sure to go to their website and grab a 40 per cent off coupon. If your wire is on the thin side, twist two strands together. If you have access to a vice, use it; if not, you can make your own by taping the ends of the wire to a desk and piling some heavy textbooks on top, then twisting the wire with pliers.

Source: The UBYSSEY