People enjoy receiving homemade gifts. Advance planning is necessary in order to ensure having enough supplies or ingredients to produce or bake the gifts for those special people in your inner circle. The price range to produce these gifts can vary widely from several hundred dollars for a necklace with genuine stones to a dollar or two for a batch of homemade candies or jam. Here are tips to help choose which homemade gifts would be most appropriate for each of the special people on your gift list.

• Food is a very popular gift regardless of whether it is one item, such as a large tin of fudge, or a gift basket of smaller food items. Possibilities include barbecue sauce for someone who loves to grill, jams and jellies, puddings, pies, specialty breads, cakes, cookies, and candies. Take dietary restrictions into consideration when selecting who will receive which gift.
  
• If you enjoy gardening, then people who cook regularly would appreciate dried herbs and spices such as parsley, chives, oregano, and rosemary.
• Another nice food gift from the garden would be a basket of jams and jellies or tree ripened fruit.
• Everyone uses soap. Decorated soaps are pretty and very easy to make if you start with an already made soap bar. Depending on which special person will be receiving the soaps, choose either an unscented bar such as Ivory or choose the recipient's favorite perfumed soap. The bar has to be square or oval so it can be slightly shaved across the top for the decorations to adhere. There are many pretty designs with directions on the major craft sites.
• If the special person on your gift list enjoys candles, then you can either make them from scratch or decorate already made candles. Just as with the soaps, you can choose either unscented or a favorite aroma. You might choose decorated tapered candles for a romantic touch for newlyweds, or decorated pillar candles that coordinate with the room's decor.
• Woodworkers have an almost unlimited supply of free designs online. Their homemade gifts might include TV trays or a magazine rack for the family room, or a bird house for the back yard.
  
• Needle crafts have been a traditional homemade gift for hundreds if not thousands of years. A knitted scarf, crocheted doll clothes, an embroidered table runner for the buffet, or a baby quilt are just a few of the many possibilities.
• A crafter with access to a pottery wheel can make a gorgeous vase. Someone who enjoys ceramics can paint a birthday plaque or a nativity set.
  

Think about what hobbies and crafts you enjoy doing. Then look at your list of special people and what the occasion will be (birthday, anniversary, graduation, etc.). Estimate how long it would take to create the gift and then plan accordingly.

Complete your homemade gifts with beautiful handmade cards. Young children will delight in pop-up cards and they are easy to assemble. Older recipients will be touched that you took the time to make such a special gift with a lovely card.

As you complete each homemade gift, take a photo of it with a digital camera. Then upload the photo into your computer. This will give you a visual record of what you create throughout the years. It will also help to keep track of who received which colors or patterns so you can add another matching piece to a set; for example, if you have given someone a large vase for the patio and they have french doors, then you can make a matching vase to put on each side of the doors. Or, if you have given a little girl a set of crocheted barbie dresses for her birthday, then you can follow up with matching hats and handbags. Digital photos make it easy to remember all of the details and they can be enlarged on the computer if you need to see the finer details.

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