9 Homemade Gift Ideas Perfect for Any Occasion

Handmade cards and gifts have gained popularity in recent years. This isn’t surprising, seeing how paper crafting and card making ideas are all over Instagram and Pinterest. This fun, exciting, and cost-efficient activity has turned even the most simple creations into eye-catching works of art. What used to be a simple pastime for bored homemakers, stay-at-home moms, or retirees has turned into a widely successful and popular hobby that even the younger generation is getting into. Aside from being a pastime, creating homemade gifts, such as handmade cards, has become an effective stress-reliever and an enjoyable family activity for some. Homemade gifts are heartwarming and thoughtful. Nothing beats the feeling of having someone personally create a gift with your favorites and interests in mind. It is simply priceless.

What exactly are the pros and cons of creating homemade gifts instead of spending time and money shopping for one?

So are you looking for homemade gifts and handmade card ideas that you can quickly try? Are you ready to customize gifts for your loved ones? From birthdays to holidays - we’ve got a few quick and easy crafting and card making ideas that you can easily try today.

Jumpstart your creativity with these 9 homemade gift ideas, which are perfect for any occasion!

1. Handmade Gift Bags

Have you ever found yourself in need of a paper bag for your gift and you don’t have enough time to go to the store and buy one? Or do you have a plain-looking gift bag that you want to customize? With just a few paper crafting supplies, you can easily make your own DIY gift bag to go along with your homemade gift. Handmade card designs can be incorporated into almost any DIY home decor or project and here’s a perfect example.

In this blog post, Altenew’s design team member Virginia shows how to personalize your handmade gift bags! With just a couple of stamp sets, some dye inks and ink sprays, and a few other crafting supplies, she made these beautiful, customized gift bags! Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to create your own gift bags.

1. Spray some Metallic Shimmer Inks on watercolor cardstock. Warm Sunshine, Caramel Toffee, Ruby Red, Frosty Pink, Forest Glades, and Frayed Leaf were used here.
2. Spraying a few spritz of water would help spreading and blending the colors. Let it dry or dry with a heat gun.
3. Emboss the Build-A-Flower: Aster stamp in white, and then die cut with coordinating die set.
4. Stamp some leaves on the gift bag and assemble the flowers with double-sided tape.
5. Add tiny splatters with Forest Glades and Frayed Leaf Ink Sprays.
6. Add a touch of shimmer with the Gold Glitter Tape from the New Day Card Kit.

This is something that you can whip up in less than 10 minutes! You can also create it in batches so that you’ll always have some extra DIY gift bags.

2. DIY Gift Wrapping and Gift Box

A variety of handmade card designs and techniques can be applied to create homemade gifts and other DIY projects. One of the best card making ideas to try is stamping. It’s quick, simple, and effective. If your gift is store-bought but you still want to add a personal touch to it, you can try doing some DIY gift wrapping or create your own gift box.

Believe it or not, this adorable box was created with just a heavy white cardstock, a few stamps, and dye inks! These lovely little gift boxes, on the other hand, were created with just washi tapes and colored cardstock. If you’re looking for themed stamp sets that you can use for different occasions and celebrations, here are some recommendations:

• Baby Zoo Stamp Set
• Bundle of Joy Stamp Set
• Baby Balloon Stamp Set
• Happy Birthday To You Stamp Set
• Painted Poppy Stamp Set
• Piles of Presents Stamp Set
• Warm Blessings Stamp Set
• Best Dad Stamp Set
• Celebrations Stamp Set
• Modern Deer Stamp Set

3. Simple Handmade Cards

What screams “homemade gift” more than a simple handmade card? Altenew’s design team members provide daily card making ideas and card making tips over on the Altenew blog. No matter what the occasion, you can always create a DIY card for it. 

Here’s a unique handmade card design that you can make in under 5 minutes! We know you want to give your special someone the world. How about giving them the world, one city at at time? You can make a card that gives them the idea of traveling to their dream destination! In the card below, Sveta used the Sketchy Cities America Stamp Sets and Bejeweled Stamp Set to create a one-of-a-kind gift!   

You can also check out the following stamp sets to recreate your own dream destination handmade card.

• Sketchy Cities America Stamp Set
  
• Sketchy Cities America 2 Stamp Set
  
• Sketchy Cities Abroad Stamp Set
  
• California Skies Stamp Set
  
• New York Stamp Set 

4. Handmade Gift Tags

Just like handmade gift boxes, you can also try some card making tips and tricks to create DIY gift tags! A few handmade card ideas such as stamping, watercoloring, die-cutting, and heat embossing are quick and easy to follow.



The great thing about handmade gift tags is that they’re super easy to personalize. For instance, if you’re giving it to someone who likes plants and gardening, then you can try recreating what Aga did in this blog post. If you want to create handmade gift tags for various occasions such as birthdays or simple thank you tags, Maryam can help you out in this blog post. This blog post showcases a variety of Christmas and holiday-themed gift tags that you can recreate easily. And if you’re still in need of more DIY gift tag inspiration, feel free to check out these posts.

5. DIY Bookmarks

Since we’re on the topic of gift tags, you should know that bookmarks are also super fun and easy to create. You can whip up a few DIY bookmarks for your bookworm friends! All you’ll need are some cardstock, adhesives, stamps and dies, inks, and other embellishments. Like gift tags, handmade bookmarks are so easy to customize, especially if you already have a few handmade card designs in mind.



In this blog post, design team member Maryam gives us a few awesome card making tips that you can use to create some DIY bookmarks. Pro Tip! Mini Stamp Sets are perfect for DIY projects and paper crafts such as tags, bookmarks, and mini albums!

6. Handmade Boxes

Just like DIY gift boxes, creating handmade boxes is easy peasy! Who needs those fancy and expensive boxes when you can create your own? If you have a family member or friend who likes storing keepsakes in boxes, this is the perfect homemade gift for them! The best thing about it is that you can definitely personalize them according to the recipient’s favorite color, character, or flower. Here’s a quick and easy handmade box idea by Sandra using just a few washi tapes and some stamps and dies. 

How adorable is that tea light gift box? Kymona created it with just a few cardstock and some patterned paper! Try to recreate it and make someone’s day.

7. Say It With Hearts!

Hearts are versatile and can add a beautiful touch to any DIY homemade gift. They show how much you care for the receiver. The message they bring is always positive and smile-inducing. No matter what the occasion is, you can use hearts to decorate your handmade gifts and projects. This is why you can easily find a variety of handmade card ideas featuring hearts online. 

Check out how creatively our design team and guest designers featured hearts on their handmade cards in this blog post. You can also find a variety of heart-themed stamp and die sets here.

8. DIY Mini Photo Album

With the popularity of Instagram and Facebook, most people don’t care to print out their photographs anymore. It’s too much of a hassle, right? This is why gifting someone a handmade photo album is extra special and thoughtful. But if you lack time and materials to create a large photo album, you can always opt for a mini album! 

This adorable DIY mini photo album created by Lydia is easy to recreate and will surely put a smile on your loved one’s face. Believe it or not, all she used were the patterned papers and ephemera from Altenew’s Enjoy the Ride Scrapbook Collection.

9. Personalized Notebooks

One of the easiest things to personalize are notebooks! This is an amazing gift idea not just for adult family or friends, but also for the little ones. Notebooks are super fun to customize, especially if you already own a few paper crafting supplies. Applying a few card making tips and techniques will also help with your creativity.

You can go for some simple stamping on the notebook’s cover like in this blog post, gather some mixed media supplies and try this personalized traveler’s notebook idea, grab some washi tapes to decorate the cover, create a fun shaker notebook cover like this one, or make some DIY pocket notebooks like these. 

There you have it! How fantastic is it that you can use various card making ideas and techniques to create your own homemade and DIY gifts? We hope you have fun trying these ideas the next time you are in need of a quick and easy handmade gift.