DIY gifts for kids are the ones they remember, because somebody made them. These 41 homemade Christmas presents cover every age on your list: sock dolls and a denim owl for the little ones, a felt dragon, a toy sink with running water, glove monsters, a play tent, seed bead rings and a cherry bracelet for the big kids, plus scented playdough, a dinosaur dig kit and a pixel puzzle game. Most won't take more than an evening and cost less than a trip to the toy aisle, and plenty of them use socks, jeans, scrap wood and cardboard you already have. Perfect for stocking stuffers, grandkids, classroom gift swaps and the kid who has everything.
1. Glove Monsters
Linda's glove monsters are the answer to every single glove in the lost and found basket. Each one starts with a stretchy knit glove, stuffed with batting and stitched closed on the sewing machine with a walking foot so the knit doesn't creep, then finished with felt eyes and a stitched smile. The fingers become arms, legs, horns or hair. Kids can help stuff and pick faces, and a whole family of monsters costs about a dollar. DIY gifts for kids don't get cheaper than that.
2. Handmade Sock Dolls
This one is ours, and it's the project that surprised us most. Two socks become a whole doll: one sock stuffed and tied off for the head and body, the other cut into arms, legs and a little hat, then a face drawn or stitched on and yarn hair tied into pigtails. A scrap of plaid for a skirt and a button for a heart and she's ready for a stocking. The first one takes patience, the second takes an hour. No one guesses they started as socks.
3. Wool Felt Stick Horses
Lia's felt stick horses are the heirloom on this list. Each head is cut from thick wool felt in gray, charcoal or oatmeal, stitched around the edge with pinking shears for that scalloped finish, stuffed and given a fringed yarn mane, felt ears and a black bead eye. A ribbon bridle and a wooden dowel finish it, and the pattern is on her site. Make one per kid in a different color and watch the backyard turn into a ranch.
4. Felt Baby Dragon
This sleepy little dragon is hand sewn from five sheets of felt, and the free pattern is on the post. Bright green for the body, dark green wings, yellow felt spikes down the back and a stitched pair of closed eyes, all sewn with a simple whip stitch and stuffed with polyfill. No machine needed, which makes it a good first sewing project for a big kid to make for a little one. He's about the size of a hand and fits in a coat pocket.
5. No Sew Denim Owl
Don't toss the jeans with the blown out knee, turn them into this owl. It's ours and there's no sewing: two owl shapes cut from the leg of an old pair of jeans get glued around a handful of stuffing, then felt circles in gray, black and white stack into big round eyes, an orange felt triangle makes the beak and two dark felt wings and a belly finish him. He's soft enough to sleep with and tough enough to survive a toddler.
6. Play Kitchen From an Entertainment Center
Carrie's play kitchen started as a heavy thrift store entertainment center, and it's the gift they'll play with for years. She took the piece apart and rebuilt the cabinets so the tall side became a fridge and freezer with silver painted doors, added a stove top, a sink with a real faucet and a little oven door, then painted it all white with a green subway tile backsplash. Pick a sturdy piece at a good counter height for your kid and let the shape of the cabinet decide the layout.
7. Fabric Hand Puppets
Shelly's hand puppets come with a free pattern that makes a cat, a bear, a bunny or a person from the same body shape, just by swapping the ears. Each one is two pieces of cotton sewn around the edge with felt eyes, a nose and a muzzle glued or stitched on, and whiskers drawn with a marker. A fat quarter makes a puppet, so a whole puppet show costs a few dollars. Nana suggests letting the kids design their own faces once the basic shape is sewn.
8. Marbled Clay Butterfly Wands
These wands are ours, and they use up two things every crafter has too much of: leftover air dry clay and half empty nail polish. Roll the clay flat, cut butterfly and dragonfly wings, let them dry, then dip them into a bowl of water with a few drops of polish swirled on top and the marbling happens by itself. Twine wraps the wings onto a stick from the yard. They're wands for the little ones and plant stakes for the grown ups, so make a handful.
9. Dinosaur Dig Excavation Kits
Crystal makes these dig kits by the dozen for party favors, and one in a stocking is a whole afternoon of quiet. Sand, plaster of Paris and water get mixed into a thick batter and poured into a silicone mold with a little dinosaur skeleton toy, a few gems and pebbles hidden inside. Once the bricks set, wrap each one with a wooden craft stick and an old paintbrush for excavating. Put down a towel first. Every kid will want to dig on the kitchen floor.
10. Momster Soft Toy
Michelle's Momster is a huggable monster with floppy arms, and the free pattern is on her post. She cut the body and arms from soft gray sweatshirt fabric with pinking shears, sewed the arms into tubes and stuffed them only a little so they flop for better hugs, then added a denim heart, a stitched smile, one button eye and one appliqued felt eye for personality. Old sweatshirts and worn jeans are perfect for this, and each one comes out with its own face.
11. Daisy Seed Bead Rings
Every kid over about seven wants a stack of these, and they're ours. A length of beading wire, a pinch of seed beads in two colors and a single bead for the center of each daisy, threaded in a loop so the flowers sit side by side around the finger. White and yellow makes a classic daisy, lavender and green or red and pink make it a Christmas ring. A whole set costs a few dollars and they fit in the toe of a stocking.
12. Toy Sink With Running Water
Charlotte built a play sink that actually runs, and it's the kind of gift kids talk about for years. It's a simple plywood box joined with pocket screws, sized around a plastic bin that drops in as the basin. The faucet is a pipe flange, a length of PVC and two elbows, spray painted blue with matching knobs, and a small pump under the basin sends water up through the tap. Set it on a low table with a towel underneath and let the dishes get washed all afternoon.
13. Homemade Scented Playdough
Stephanie Rose makes her playdough at home because the store kind has a petroleum additive, and hers smells like a spa. It's the classic stovetop dough, flour, salt, cream of tartar, oil and water cooked until it pulls together, colored with food coloring and scented with a few drops of essential oil, lavender for calming down or orange for waking up. Kids can help stir. Pack the colors in little jars with a ribbon and it's a stocking stuffer that costs almost nothing.
14. Seed Bead Cherry Bracelet
Seed bead bracelets are all over every feed right now, and this cherry one is ours and the easiest of the bunch. White seed beads make the band, and every inch or so you add two red beads side by side with a green bead on top for the stem, then finish with a small clasp. It takes a few minutes and a handful of beads, which makes it a gift a big kid can make for a friend group. Swap the colors for grapes or holly berries.
15. Angelica Amigurumi Mini Doll
Sara's Angelica is a free amigurumi pattern, and her curls are the best part. The doll works up in worsted yarn with safety eyes and little pink felt cheeks, a ruffled pink dress and a head of hair made from rows of chains and single crochet that curl on their own as you work them. Sara includes instructions for arranging the hair exactly like the photo, which takes the stress out of the hardest part of any doll. She's palm sized and perfect for a stocking.
16. Hand Stamped Play Tent
Francesca built this A-frame tent for her son's birthday and stamped the fabric herself so it matched the party. The frame is a few lengths of wood with a dowel across the top, and the cover is plain white cotton stamped in a scatter of black dashes with a bit of foam and fabric paint. A string of fairy lights along the edge and a cushion inside finish it. Fold it flat when the living room needs to be a living room again.
17. Plastic Jug Pig Planter
This little pig is ours and he started life as an empty gallon jug. The jug lies on its side with the handle underneath, four bottle necks glued on for legs, two triangles cut from the leftover plastic for ears and the cap left on for a snout. Two coats of pink paint, a pair of googly eyes and two dots for nostrils, then cut the top open and fill him with soil and a plant. A kid can grow herbs or a flower in him all winter.
18. Christmas Tree Stacking Rings
Kimberly's stacking rings are a baby toy and a Christmas tree in one. Five fabric rings in different green holiday prints get stuffed and edged with pom pom trim and ric rac so tiny fingers have textures to explore, then they stack on a soft fabric pole with a yellow felt star on top. The rings come off and go back on all December, and when the season ends it packs flat in the ornament box. A first Christmas gift that beats anything plastic.
19. Shoe Tying Practice Toy
Menucha made this for a preschooler who wanted to tie his own shoes, and it's the cheapest teaching toy on the list. Two sneaker shapes cut from craft foam using her free template, a stripe of contrasting foam for the toe, holes punched down each side and a real shoelace threaded through. That's it. Kids practice the bunny ears on the table instead of bent over their feet, and it's a smart gift for the child who doesn't own lace up shoes yet.
20. No Sew Felt Fruit Coasters
Ours, and no needle required. Felt sheets get cut into an apple, a watermelon slice, a lemon round and a dragon fruit, layered from the outside in so the skin, flesh and seeds stack up, and glued together. A whole set takes under an hour. They're coasters for the kitchen, but every kid who sees them wants them for a tea party, so make a set for the play kitchen too. Let the kids pick the fruit and cut the seeds while you handle the scissors on the big pieces.
21. Sleepy Raindrop Softies
Melissa's sleepy raindrops are the softest thing here. Two fleece raindrops and a cloud, cut from her free pattern, sewn and stuffed, with closed eyes and little smiles stitched in black embroidery floss. They're small enough to tuck into a diaper bag and soft enough for a newborn, and the cloud doubles as a mini pillow. Make the set in white for a modern nursery or in pastels to match the crib quilt.
22. Painted Rock Tic Tac Toe
Lynne made this with her after school craft class and every kid took theirs home. A big wood slice gets a tic tac toe grid drawn on with a marker, then ten small smooth rocks get painted, five as red and white flowers and five as ladybugs, so the two players can tell their pieces apart. It lives on the coffee table or the porch and never needs batteries, which is rare for gifts for kids. Bag the rocks in a little drawstring pouch and give it with the slice.
23. Pocket Mini Notebooks
These are ours, and they're the five minute craft that uses up the scrapbook paper pile. A sheet of plain paper folds down into a tiny signature of pages, a patterned scrap wraps around it as the cover and a line of glue along the spine holds it all together. They're small enough for a pocket or a pencil case, so make a stack in different papers and let each kid pick. Tuck a mini pen in and it's a stocking stuffer with a job.
24. Felt Pixel Puzzle Board Game
Agnes turned pixel art into a board game you can make from felt. A big square of felt by the yard becomes the board, with a grid marked in fabric marker and letters across the top and numbers down the side. Then a stack of three inch felt squares in a rainbow of colors becomes the tiles. Kids follow a pattern card to build a tulip, a rocket or a heart square by square, or free build their own. Everything rolls up into a tube for the car.
25. Toy Animal Succulent Planters
Audrey's animal planters are plastic toy animals from the dollar bin given a whole new life. Each one gets two or three coats of spray paint in a bright color, then a hole cut in its back with a drill or a sharp pair of scissors and a small succulent tucked in with a bit of moss. A horse, a hippo and a giraffe lined up on a bookshelf look like they came from a design store. A big kid can help paint, and a little one can water.
26. Crochet Marble Maze Fidget Toy
Debbie's crochet fidget toy is a flat pouch with a marble trapped inside, and the goal is to push the marble through the maze with your thumbs. It works up in two shades of blue worsted yarn with rows of surface stitches making the walls of the maze, then gets sewn shut around a single glass marble. The free pattern and video are on her post. It's quiet, it fits in a pocket and it's the kind of thing a fidgety kid keeps in their coat all winter.
27. Crochet Beach Ball Pillow
Alexis crocheted a beach ball you can throw around the house without anyone getting in trouble. The free pattern uses worsted weight yarn in three colors and a G hook to make six panels that join into a ball, with a white circle at each end, then it gets stuffed with fiberfill until it's squishy. Red, pink and white is her combo, but any three colors work. It's a pillow for the kid's room and a soft ball for the living room.
28. Scribble Robot Kids Can Build
Cindy's scribble robot is the science kit you build yourself. A plastic cup gets four markers glued evenly around the inside as legs, a small hobby motor and a battery pack hot glued on top and a clothespin clipped to the motor shaft to throw it off balance. Connect the wires and it wobbles across a sheet of paper drawing loops. Kids can change the drawings by moving the markers or adding weight to the cup. Pack it unassembled with the instructions for a gift that's also a project.
29. Simple Painted Wooden Toys
Amy handed her daughter a bag of unfinished wooden toys from the craft store, sponge brushes and a few bottles of acrylic paint, and this is what came back. A teal alligator with gold dots, a green striped lizard and a pink heart on a stick, all finished with a gold paint pen once the base coats dried. Cover the table first. It's a gift a kid can make for a younger cousin, and the wooden blanks cost a dollar or two each.
30. Flour Balloon Squeeze Ball
Sara's squeeze ball is flour in a balloon, and her son begged to make one five seconds into the video. Three quarters of a cup of flour goes through a wide funnel into an empty water bottle, the balloon stretches over the bottle neck, and a squeeze of the bottle fills the balloon. Tie it off, then stretch a second balloon over the first for strength, cutting the neck off so it sits smooth. A green one inside a pink one shows through the cut.
31. Mini Bottle Fish Aquarium
Evelyn's mini aquarium is a plastic bottle from the craft store, chosen because little hands can hold it and can't break it. Colorful aquarium gravel goes in the bottom, a plastic aquarium plant is threaded in and a tiny toy clownfish gets tied to the plant so it swims in the middle when the bottle is filled with water and glued shut. Kids can make it themselves in ten minutes and it sits on a nightstand like a real tank that never needs feeding.
32. Ringer Game Sensory Bottle
Nell remembered the handheld ringer game from her childhood and rebuilt it as a sensory bottle. A clear plastic bottle gets a pink pencil glued upright in the bottom, a handful of colorful loom bands and enough water to fill it, then the cap is glued on for good. Tip and shake and the rings drift down, and the game is landing one on the peg. It's survived years of thrashing in her house. Quiet enough for church and small enough for a stocking.
33. Vintage Style Color Cubes
This one recreates the color cube sets sold a hundred years ago, the ones with painted wooden blocks you arrange into quilt patterns. Scrap wood gets cut into 25 one inch cubes and each face painted in solids, halves and triangles of red, white, blue and yellow, then they go in a small wooden box with a card of patterns to copy. Kids match the designs or invent their own, and the box goes on the shelf like an antique. A rainy day gift that's almost impossible to break.
34. Peek a Boo Toy Bags
Megan's peek a boo bags are the answer to the tiny toy problem, and they're a scrap buster. Each bag is a rectangle of cotton, a rectangle of clear vinyl sewn in as a window and a strip of hook and loop tape to close the top. The vinyl means a kid can see the magnetic letters or little cars inside without dumping the whole thing on the floor. Fat quarters are perfect for this. Sew a set in different prints and give them filled.
35. Felt Monster Paper Dolls
These felt monsters are paper dolls that never tear. Each body is cut from cream felt in a lumpy monster shape, then a pile of little felt pieces, eyes, teeth, bows, hats, bow ties and mouths in every color, sticks to the body on its own because felt grips felt. Kids dress and redress the monsters for hours and nothing needs glue. They were party favors originally, but a monster and a bag of parts in a stocking is a gift every kid gets.
36. Painted Dinosaur Door Stop
Colleen's kids kept shutting their bedroom doors, and a plush door stop got carried off every time, so she made one heavy enough to stay put. A plastic toy dinosaur and a chunky wood wedge both get a coat of hammered black spray paint, then the dinosaur is glued to the block. It looks like cast iron and it holds a door all day. Make one in a kid's favorite dinosaur and it's a gift for the room, not just the toy box.
37. Water Cycle Flextangle Paper Toy
Emma's flextangle is a paper toy and a science lesson in one, and the template is a free printable on her post. Kids color the water cycle drawings, cut along the lines, fold the tabs and glue it into a ring that flips inside out in their hands, showing evaporation, condensation and precipitation as it turns. It takes one sheet of cardstock. Print a few, tuck them in a stocking with a pack of markers and the kids assemble their own.
38. Kitchen Sponge Sailboats
Kate's sponge boats are a bath toy you can make in ten minutes. A kitchen sponge gets its corners cut off to make a hull, a wooden craft stick pushes in as the mast and a sail cut from a plastic folder or tablecloth gets threaded on, so it's waterproof and won't sag. They float in a tub, a sink or a bucket in the yard, and when they tip over you squeeze them out and start again. Make a fleet in different colors for a stocking.
39. Vintage Crate Toy Chest
Taryn's toy chest is a wooden shipping crate her grandfather mailed home from Hong Kong in the forties, and the fix was simple: build a lid. Three boards glued and screwed to two cross braces, painted white, hinged to the back of the crate with a black handle on top, and the old stamps and mailing label stay on the sides. Any vintage crate from a flea market works. Give it filled with a few of the other DIY gifts for kids on this list.
40. No Sew Felt Farm Play Mat
Angie made this play mat for her grandson's first birthday because he loves pushing tractors around the floor. A big piece of green felt is the field, brown felt strips become the roads, a blue felt patch is the pond and the barn, horses, cows, sheep and chickens are cut from a printed farm fabric and fused on with iron on adhesive. No sewing. It rolls up with a ribbon, and a couple of toy tractors tied to the roll finish the gift.
41. Lotion Bottle Toy Boat
Jodi's toy boat is an empty lotion bottle, and it floats better than most store boats. The bottle gets a wrap of washi tape in stripes, a hole punched in the top for a pink straw mast and a sail cut from scrapbook paper. She uses it to talk with her kids about keeping at something, but it works just as well as a bath toy. Make three from different bottles and race them in the tub on Christmas night.
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