This Christmas, everybody’s stressed out about money, from autoworkers in Detroit to bigwigs on Wall Street (OK that’s a lie) to college students everywhere.  If you’re short on cash (or if you need to save your pennies for Chanel bags or PS3 games), it’s a good idea to consider creating homemade gifts for your friends and family.   Most people won’t care that you didn’t spend much money on them because they’ll be touched that you spent so much effort to come up with such creative DIY Gift Ideas.  Unless you’re buying gifts for 10-year-old boys who only like video games and sugary cereals, you can easily get away with a DIY Gift for Christmas.  Just roll up your sleeves, put the whiskey on the shelf, and get the right side of your brain rolling.

In Five DIY Gift Ideas for Christmas, I’ve presented some sure-fire concepts that really don’t take too long to complete.  If you’ve got a Sunday afternoon to spare, you could probably put one of them together with ease and creativity.

One really cool DIY gift idea is to make someone an original t-shirt by using an iron-on transfer (which costs about $10 for a pack of 10 transfer sheets).  Just print out a nice family photo or an embarrassing one with a funny tag line and then use an iron-on sheet and an iron to make your own, one-of-a-kind, DIY gift.  If you think that putting a photo on a t-shirt is a bit of a tired concept, you could always make a little collage of their favorite things: puppies and gossip girl for your little sister; wolves and ice cream for your older brother.  In total, you could make 3 or 4 original t-shirts for about $5 each, which is less than the cost of 3 burritos.

Rounding out the five homemade gift ideas are sock puppets, homemade fishing lures, and more!

If the items on this list are too difficult, confusing, or artsy for your taste, there’s a bunch of other cheap DIY gift ideas listed here.  Merry Crafting!