Ideas for Making Your Own Gift Baskets

Create your own themed gift basket to give a friend or family member. Fill it with personally chosen items or homemade treats. Choose a basket with or without a handle and decorate it to fit the occasion such as a holiday or birthday. Items can include inexpensive gifts from a dollar store or home-baked goodies. Place the completed basket inside a large cellophane bag available at craft or discount stores. Add a pretty bow, a balloon and gift tag with a personal note.

Fill a reusable basket suitable for a baby's nursery with a variety of items a new mother will appreciate. Purchase baby items that can include receiving blankets, toys and rattles, small frames, wall art, clothing, bibs, wash cloths and a baby journal. A gift certificate at a local spa for Mom, baby note cards, relaxing bubble bath and aromatherapy candles or a few coupons she can redeem for your babysitting services are a few other options that will make this gift basket special.

Surprise the person who loves to spend hours in his or her garden with a gift basket of treats. Packets of seasonal seeds, hand tools, work gloves, a garden themed journal, hand lotion made to soften a gardener's hands or a certificate to a garden shop are all items that will put a smile on the recipient's face.

Fill a basket with an assortment of ground coffee packets and tins of flavored teas. Place a pretty kitchen towel in the bottom of the basket and add a coffee mug or china teacup and saucer along with themed napkins, bars of chocolate, candy, specialty cookies or imported treats to accompany a leisurely pastime.

Create a "basket of cheer" for an older friend or relative. Consider a thoughtful collection of cookies, muffins, soups, teas, coffees, paperback book or magazine (in large print if appropriate), socks, favorite toiletries, framed photographs of family members and grandchildren or other familiar items that will please this special person.