Here are a few quick, easy, and free or close to free gifts that you can download or print in 5 minutes or less:
Download Free Music:
Amazon
Your local library may have free music that you can download from their website through Freegal. You can also use your library card and pin to download the music from Freegal’s site. There is a limit to how many songs you can download per library card per week.
Download free audio books:
Printable Gifts:
My free printables: bookmarks, date with mom coupons, cooking lessons with mom coupons, bookplates, printable seed packets, needlebooks, and dollhouse printables
Free Sheet Music for variety of instruments
Paper Dolls:
Soldiers of 3 Wars and Their Lasses
(In both color and black and white outlines for coloring)
Regency and Victorian paper dolls
(In both color and black and white outlines for coloring)
Paper Toys:
Think play castles, buildings, and cars. These are cut, folded, and glued to construct. These are great to print out and let your children construct!
Beautiful, simple toys (along with a couple of fun boxes for gift giving, including a frog and a chocolate truck)
Good for older children or even adults. These projects require a lot of paper and ink.
Vintage-Style Concentration Game
Vintage French paper toys that you can print
Free Images:
Use these as artwork gifts.
She has both free printables and lots of tutorial projects
Do you have any favorites to add to the list? Share them in the comments below!
Brandy, these are really sweet ideas for add on gifts and stocking stuffers. Thank you for the links!
For those who have children that are interested in Minecraft, there are lots of free printables available on-line. The easiest way to find a bunch is through Pinterest search, though I’m sure a google search will also offer up plenty. Since Minecraft is mainly a building game, the printables are usually the various “building blocks” from the game, which can be cut out and folded into cubes. They can then be used to build three dimensional structures. Educational and fun for both boys and girls!
I also thought I would share an idea for a gift I’m giving this year to my mother-in-law. We recently bought an MP3 player for my daughter. My MIL commented that one of those would be useful for when she went on walks. She is not very tech savvy, so I downloaded a bunch of music I know she likes onto an MP3 player we bought for her. We already had the CDs so the cost for the music was free and the MP3 player was fairly inexpensive as this technology is quickly being replaced with iphones and other devices. Anyways, I thought this might be helpful for someone looking for a last minute gift idea.
Thanks for such a great list! Handmade Charlotte and Wild Olive are two more blogs I know of with really fun free printables. The Dating Divas has some great printables if you’re after a fun (or naughty!) gift for your spouse; some are free, some aren’t. Other 5 minute gift ideas include: print out an iron-on transfer for a premade t-shirt or tote bag; make things out of an old t-shirt (recycled t-shirt tote bag, infinity scarf, hair ties, hair bands, etc.); a dishtowel apron (take a dishtowel and some ribbon; cut the ribbon in half; sew one bit of ribbon to either end to make ties for an apron); if you happen to have a large piece of felt just laying around, Organized Christmas has a quick tutorial for making a jigsaw puzzle mat that would make a nice gift for someone who loves jigsaws, or as an add-on to a second-hand jigsaw puzzle. Drawstring bags are easy to whip up; I once made my son a set of 3, stamped “vroom”, “roar”, and “choo-choo” for him to hold his treasures; or you could make one up and fill it with candy or stationary or little animals or anything, really. If you have access to sand, moon sand or kinetic sand is dead-easy to make; I don’t know how the stores get away with charging what they charge for it. Play doh is also very easy to make and very easy to customise; there are tons of recipes out there. Some toiletries are very easy to make too, things like sugar scrubs or bath salts; use Google to find recipes that use what you already have on-hand and you have a nice gift for a sister, mother, or teenage daughter.
For many the most precious gift you can give is your time. My grandfather passed away just a few months shy of 105 years of age. When you would ask him what he wanted the answer was always the same, “just come visit and spend an hour with me.” After my grandfather died my grandmother became home bound since she had never learned to drive. When you asked her what she wanted her answer was always the same as well, “take me out for a drive.” They more than anyone taught me that stuff can never replace the joy of spending time with people you care about.
Janet, this sounds like my grandparents! They really just love to have anyone come over and visit. They can’t get out as often, as my grandfather is 86 and his driving is very limited. I don’t think people realize how just sitting there and letting them go on about whatever they want really does mean so much to them. I also try to buy them gifts that they will use up or eat. My grandfather loves to get fruit baskets ( I make mine myself) with lots of grapes in them, jars of my home canned pickles since they no longer have a garden and can, and my grandmother always asks me to get her a tin of Watkins Petro-Carbo Salve ( she uses that stuff for everything). At their age they don’t really want or need anymore knickknacks and the like.
Mae, Thank you so much for the Organized Christmas site…headed right over and checked out the jigsaw puzzle roller. So simple! I think I might make it tonight. Our children already have a box with 9 puzzles (!!!!!) wrapped under our tree right now that I scored at our city’s annual library book sale (they take CDs, puzzles, DVDs and games as donations as well as books) for $.50!!!! This will be perfect!! Thank you so, so much 🙂 plus, I could see myself using that site for other things, so I bookmarked it. Thanks again, Heidi
I love the date with mom and cooking lessons with mom coupons! Thank you for making those and sharing them for free with us. These are absolutely perfect for all three of my children, but especially Isabella my middle child. She’s 7 and very intelligent and independent for her age, which results in her feeling left out or with not enough attention quite often. Recently she’s really taken an interest in cooking and wants to my helper at every meal. These coupons will be a PERFECT gift for her! She also loves watching Rachel Ray’s “Week in a day” cooking show on Netflix, so I think I’ll make a set of coupons for her that say “watch one cooking show with mom”. Is there anyway we can alter the words on the coupons you’ve already made up?
Thanks again!
Danielle Bradbury
Great steal on the jigsaw puzzles! I always hesitate to buy them second-hand in case they’re missing pieces. I made a puzzle mat for next Christmas for my kids. This is year 1 of what I hope will be an 8 year series, where each Christmas I’ll give the kids a gift based on things I remember about my grandparents and things my husband remembers about his grandparents. For my paternal grandmother, one of my strongest memories of her is her working on jigsaw puzzles. Since so much of her life is a mystery to me (we weren’t close; and she was not terribly forthcoming about a lot of things – I found out later through my dad that she was rather misleading about some things, like, she took to calling all of her granddaughters ‘old maids’ when we were 18 and not married, but she herself wasn’t married until her late 20s!) I thought that would also make a nice metaphor for her life; so I’ve made the puzzle mat and will pair it with a couple of puzzles and write a book about her and about my memories of watching her work on puzzles, and about how puzzles are very much like her life – I know a few bits and pieces but still can’t put it together in a way that makes sense of her as a woman. I use Artscow for the books (they have a promotion now where you can get 2 6×6 photobooks for US$5 delivered); Artscow also makes puzzles; I haven’t decided yet if I’ll get a puzzle made up with an old family photo of my dad’s family, or if I’ll just pick up some $1 puzzles from K-Mart . . .
Danielle,
For the Date with Mom coupons, I have printed and cut them, then glued them on pretty cardstock with a few penned words. I have also glued on the other side of the card an image printed from the website of a play we are going to see. These gifts are a big hit!