Frugal Christmas Gift Ideas

It's going to be a frugal Christmas for many people this year! I love to find ways to bless my family, while not having to break the bank to do so! Shhh... don't give away my Christmas surprises to my children, but I did want to tell you a couple of ideas I've come up with for gifts for them this year. While we are blessed to be able to afford a few store-bought gifts, these are some extra things that cost me pennies, but will give them a lot of pleasure I have no doubt!

First, my daughter, who loves to read, is going to be receiving the Elsie Dinsmore series of books by Martha Finley, which I printed out online for FREE! This is a very popular book series, especially with young homeschooled girls, and, while you COULD go somewhere like Vision Forum and get a very nice bound hard bound copy of the books for around $150, you could also do what I did and print it out on your own computer for only the cost of paper and ink in your printer! I found Elsie Dinsmore and thousands of other free vintage books in the public domain at Project Gutenberg. You can punch holes in the paper and put them in a ring binder, but this past year I have learned to easily bind my own books (another blog post in and of itself!) and am in the process of binding the Elsie Dinsmore books for my daughter:

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

The next frugal Christmas gift idea I want to share with you is making your own coloring books for your children. I came across a website called Coloring Book which has an incredible selection of popular children's themed coloring pages...all for FREE! If this website doesn't have what you are looking for, do a search on the internet for whatever subject you're looking for plus "coloring pages" or "printable". For my horse lover, I searched for "horse coloring pages" and found a bunch to download and print. Here are a few of the coloring books I've made so far:

photo copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies

I hope I've inspired you to "think outside of the box" when considering frugal Chrismas gift possibilities. If you focus on the types of storebought things that would make your children happy to receive, see if there is a way to create something around that theme yourself, rather than spending lots of money to fulfill those often expensive Christmas lists! Do you have some ideas? Comment below and please share them with us!

Copyright 2008 Domestic Legacies