Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift but left it too late to order online and don’t fancy braving the shops at the most chaotic time of the year? Perhaps it’s Christmas eve, everywhere is closed and you’ve realised you’ve missed one of your guests off your gift list? Fear not, I’ve rounded up a selection of quick and easy gifts to DIY with things you (probably) have around the house! In the spirit of authenticity, all of the projects in this blog were created with things I already had.

Let’s start with my personal favourite category…

Last-Minute Edible Gifts to Make at Home

Ok so the availability of ingredients in your house may depend on how regularly you bake, but I’m confident you’ll be able to whip up a tasty treat of some description! If you’ve got a go-to cookie, truffle, granola or sauce recipe then absolutely stick with that, but here’s some of my personal favourites:

Cookie & Kate’s Cranberry Orange Granola (vegan/gluten free option)

I bake a variation of this granola pretty much every week and swap out the orange zest and cranberries for chocolate chips, marshmallows, nuts or most often just a generous teaspoon of good old-fashioned cinnamon. Decorate a mason jar with Posca Pen and you’ve got yourself a gorgeous hand-made gift in half an hour!

Chocolate Covered Katie’s Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten free option)

Again, you could swap out the chocolate for whatever you have to hand such as sprinkles, nuts or dried fruit. Pop them in a box decorated with washi and ribbon and voila! Archer & Olive’s notebook boxes are lovely and sturdy and great for re-purposing - just pop a bit of baking paper in the bottom before adding your cookies. You can also check out the ideas in our Recyclable Gift Wrap blog post from last year for more decorating inspiration.

Full disclosure - this is actually Cake or Death's Vanilla Funfetti Bake at Home Cookie Dough, but you could totally swap out the chocolate chips in the above recipe for sprinkles!

This recipe also works well as a Bake Your Own Cookies jar. Simply layer the dry ingredients (flour, raising agent, salt, sugar and chocolate chips) in a jar then write out the method and any remaining wet ingredients that need to be added (milk, oil and vanilla extract in this case) on a label and tie it to the jar with a cute ribbon.

School Night Vegan’s Three Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Truffles (gluten free)

These are pretty messy but good fun to make! As the name suggests, they only require three ingredients or two if you dunk them in melted chocolate rather than rolling them in cocoa powder! Make sure they’re thoroughly set before you package them in your decorated jar or box.

Truffle making also makes a great fun Christmas Eve activity to do with friends and family and you can get creative adding spices, booze, nuts etc.

A Baking Journey’s Three Ingredient Biscoff Truffles (vegan)

I haven’t personally tried these ones but they sound incredible and seemed very apt given Nikki’s love of biscuits!

DIY Tunnocks Teacake Pens

Following on from my last biscuity suggestion, I couldn’t resist including these super fun Tunnocks Teacake biros that Nikki made a few years ago. All you need is a basic biro with a clear barrel, an empty Tunnocks Teacake wrapper (oh what a shame you’ll have to eat one), double-sided sticky tape and a pair of scissors.

Remove the ink cartridge from the biro add cut a piece of double-sided tape the same length. Stick it onto your Teacake wrapper and cut around it. Peel the backing off the double-sided tape, and slowly and carefully wrap the now-adhesive Teacake wrapper around the pen’s ink cartridge. Pop it back inside the clear barrel and you have the perfect little gift for a biscuit lover or Scotland-fanatic!

DIY Upcycled Notebooks to Gift

I’m sure most of us have a few spare notebooks or sketchbooks kicking around that we’re probably never going to get around to using! Why not give them a little personalised finishing touch and gift them to someone else? We’ve got a whole blog post on decorating your journal which has heaps of inspo but here’s a couple of extras with supplies you’ll probably have to hand:

If you’ve got a branded notebook with an ugly logo or slogan on it, why not cover it in washi tape or stickers to make it more personal for the recipient? I love these Korean Paperways Mini Notebooks but thought the front could be a little cuter, so I cut out a Custard Cream from our Biscuits Kraft Paper Parcel Tape and used it to cover the page layout preview.

As someone whose name is never available on personalised gifts, I’m a big fan of a monogram! I spruced up this boring watercolour sketchbook with a washi art “J”. As the Mid Century Magic Washi Tape I used had a semi-transparent white background, I drew out my letter on white paper rather than sticking it straight onto my kraft paper sketchbook, cut around the letter with scissors and glued it into place.

Speedy DIY Washi Tape Bookmark

In keeping with my love of monograms, I used the same method as my washi tape cut-out gift tags to make a monogrammed bookmark. I cut the basic bookmark shape on my Cricut but it could easily be cut by hand and you could use a hole-punch to make a neat hole for a tassel. I used this method from Folksy and embroidery thread to make my tassel. A homemade bookmark makes a lovely little extra gift to give with a book or a book token!

Dot Grid Paper Palm Leaves

If you’ve got any of our A5 Dot Grid Pads, why not use them to whip up a set of paper palm leaves? They can be made with any paper, but I found the dot grid provided a very helpful guide to keep my folds evenly spaced. I used this tutorial from Ohoh Deco, and printed the templates at 50% to ensure they fitted on my A5 Dot Grid Papers.

These would also make a lovely addition to the outside of a wrapped gift or the lid of a box of cookies of chocolates.

Decorating Terracotta Plant Pots with Posca Pens

Got any terracotta plant pots sitting around in the garden or shed? Give ‘em a scrub and get busy with your Posca Pens! I absolute love these colourful ones that @beccaaaacollier created and you can see heaps more inspo her reel. A great gift for a green-fingered pal and they also make marvellous colourful pen pots.Your designs should be smudge-proof once the pen is dry but if you want to make them waterproof, give them a quick coat of varnish.

I hope that’s given you a little inspiration for some last-minute gifts to DIY! Why not bookmark this page so you can come back to it? If you’ve been inspired by any of the projects in this post, we’d love to see! Please tag @nikkissupplystore and #NikkisSupplyStore on Instagram, where you can find heaps more journaling and stationery inspiration. You can also follow me at @joy.margot for more craft content and pictures of my cat, Juniper.