bookmarks are great for all ages of children, boys and girls, to make – they can be made of paper, material, even knitted, cross-stitched and decorated with so many different designs, cut from magazines, drawn, downloaded from the internet and coloured in. Try cutting out photos, to make a collage, laminating, Plus they can be given to all sorts of people – from other children to adults.

My kids learnt so much from preschool /primary school days as they had the most art and crafts lessons those times. Once they reach high school, focus is on academic subjects and arts has to be turned into masterpieces. I know they did a lot of drawing and paintings on cardboard /canvases /paper etc .. , made a lot of handmade cards, beaded jewellery such as bracelets , necklaces etc …

Just give them all your arty things and let them go for it. See what they can come up with. You’ll be surprised and they will be unique gifts.

Anything with paint and using either their hands or feet is a great personal present! You can make a tree with handprints or a “superman” with the foot as the body

Like the suggestion of suggestion the craft section on MoM’s.

Check out the art and craft section on here! Many great ideas!

Take a look at the craft section here, there are some awesome ideas, but one that never fails is the canvas with some sort of foot or hand print.

For fathers day we made a canvas painted the background sky blue, used my daughters foot for Dad’s body, my daughters hand for the cape, my sons hand for the sun and two of his foot prints turned outwards to make a love heart, stuck a pic of Dad’s head on the heel of the foot, cartoon arms and painted the words, “Who needs superheros when you have Dad!”

Something else I was going to get my kids to make for my mum (their Nan) is a reasons why I love you jar. Sometimes my mum feels lonely and I want my kids to decorate the jar, then write lots of reasons on paper why they love her (I will contribute too) and then on days she needs a pick me up she can open the jar and grab a random love note.

Easy craft projects are always a good idea too.

Framed works of artwork are always wonderful and much treasured.

How old are your children? I was going to suggest baking (I’m always thinking with my stomach!).

I love the other ideas from the other Mums and Dads though, especially the idea of buying a blank mini canvas for artwork (painting or collage).

Good luck! Perhaps you could write an article for Mom based on the suggestions you receive and what your children make?

I as going to suggest the craft section on here too – I got lots of great ideas here for Christmas gifts. My daughter and I made candles from a candle making kit form Spotlight – they worked really well.

Check out the craft section on here! There are many wonderful ideas that make great gifts

Craft stores are good for finding things like boxes and letters for kids to paint they can even been covered in fabrics as well. I’m finding these days many discount stores have heaps of craft ideas.

We used to make cookies or cupcakes and decorate them for presents when we were younger.. Loved thr whole baking thing and then didn’t have to eat it all!

Jewellery making is fun and good for family gifts.
picking flowers and using some nice string to tie them is a nice gift.
otherwise decorating a mirror or picture frame. you can get cheap frames from cheap as chips etc. Sewing a container for plastic bags… etc

When i was little about 8 mum taught me how to knit, i use to knit bits that were just big enough to fit on a wooden coat hanger and sew it on Everybody ended up with lovely colourful coat hangers, You could even buy them a small canvas from the reject shop and let them do a painting for a gift. the granparnets love these.

I love the preserving jars filled with the ingredients for biscuits for adults

I always search the home wares section and find things i can personalize!
Kmart is good and cheap for that!
I has this wooden house shaped homware item from Kmart, i ended up adding bunting with Polaroids of my bub and hung on by wooden pegs.
It looked awesome i also super glued mini planted cactus (Fake of course too)
I can send you a pic if your interested – meghan_jeffries@hotmail.com.
You can do something similar but with paintings.
Or I find finger painting the cardboard border parts in frames and adding a recent photo a good idea!

Bath salts, decorate a photo frame, depending on the kids age they could do a scrap book with photos and write the memories for that photo next to it