homemade | Kisses, Cuddles, and Aeroplanes

Have you ever done home-made gifts for friends or family?

Baking? Framed memories? Jars with ingredients? Love vouchers?

A sample of a love voucher Cameron made up for me. Last time he did it, he printed them as 4x6 pictures and put them into a small photo album. Once redeemed, they get put into the back and turned around so not visible, and on a birthday or Christmas, he'll randomly put them back in the front and give them again. I. LOVE. IT. — A sample of a love voucher Hubby made up for me. Last time he did it, he printed them as 4×6 pictures and put them into a small photo album. Once redeemed, they get put into the back and turned around so not visible, and on a birthday or Christmas, he’ll randomly put them back in the front and give them again. I. LOVE. IT.

We are big fans of thoughtful gifts, and not fans of materialism and spending big bucks on stuff that people don’t want.

For our son’s first birthday, we spent a whopping $5 on a second hand boy doll (that he loves to this day at 3 and a half years old), and a $2 thing of bubbles! They were both very appreciated! We spent more on his cake because we bought two model type aeroplanes (for about $15 all up) for the awesome cake my husband made for him! (Hubby’s dad made the cakes when they were kids, so I wanted to carry on that awesome tradition! 🙂 ) We had a fun family dinner to celebrate!

All we asked from my brother and sister-in-law was a big box so we could make a playhouse! It was perfect and FREE!

Hubby's first try at making a themed cake! EPIC! Hangar, tower, and runway in the shape of a number one- complete with a plane taking off! — Hubby’s first try at making a themed cake! EPIC! Hangar, tower, and runway in the shape of a number one- complete with a plane taking off!

Birthday number two- family dinner again, stuffed Mickey Mouse ($1 from op shop!), and pull back aeroplane ($6 from Save the Children shop!)

Birthday number three- first kiddy party! I wanted to wait until HE could appreciate it. Before three, do they really care if people are there other than family? The only present from us was an awesome rocket I had found as-new, second-hand months earlier for ~~$200~~ $50!!. We used rockets as the theme and daddy made an amazing, gruesome cake! It had “crashed” because that’s what Josiah always did with his planes and rockets, and hubby made blood ~~jelly/jello~~ ooze out the hatch door. It was pretty perfect for J, though, and he loved it!

We kept the party cheap by finding décor throughout the year on sale or at dollar stores, putting his many aerospace books on window ledges for inspiration, and having mostly naturally gluten free foods that he is normally allowed to eat. I’m not keen for my kids to go crazy on sugar, so why would I waste a special day and make my kid go nuts and feel sick on sugar? That doesn’t make sense to me! So we had bananas, home-popped lightly salted popcorn, apple slices, carrot sticks, celery with peanut butter and raisins, some sausages, and cake- with water as the drink. Not one kid complained! Anyway, back onto the topic at hand! Healthy eating is another post entirely!

Healthy doesn't have to mean BORING! — Healthy doesn’t have to mean BORING!

Lovely, eh?! This is what can happen when hubby gets free reign of the cake design!!

I have SO many more things I could say about affordable gift-giving, but I’ll leave you for now with our boys’ ONLY Christmas present from us this year. (call us Scrooges, but they didn’t care!)

TA DA!! I promised in my earlier post about building free forts that I would show you our latest creation! Here is it! We finished it on Christmas afternoon while J slept at Grandma’s house. I found all of the materials for this as I was out and about doing errands in the weeks before. I would drive through the industrial area on my way home and pick up odds and ends every trip. We already had the stuff like drill, hammer, nails and screws, so it was free for us and pretty cool! They love it!