Oh my goodness, I am so excited about this ultimate gift guide for crafters and creatives! This gift guide is FILLED to the brim with ideas for anyone who is creative or longs to be. I’ve included ideas for crafters, creatives, designers, moms, and everyone in between.

Don’t forget to print off my free Christmas tags to add to all of your wonderful gifts!

Now let’s get started, shall we?

The Ultimate Gift Guide for Crafters and Creatives

Gifts for the Gifter (or for that hard-to-buy-for person.)

Thinking Outside of the Gift Box – Lauren Lanker from The Thinking Closet is one of my favorite people in internet-land. Seriously, she has a gift for gifting. Her site is packed full of creative ideas for gifts that will make you think, “Ah! Why have I not been doing this my whole life?” She wrote an entire book about gift-giving called Thinking Outside of the Gift Box that I highly recommend. You can get one for yourself and make some of the meaningful gifts inside for that friend who has it all. You could also gift the book to the friend who loves to make gifts for others.

The Creative Retreat – I believe that creativity matters, but many of us have limited time these days for our creative pursuits. I wrote this book to teach you how to create your own personal retreat with a minimum of resources. It’s full of creative exercises, interviews from creative women just like you, and space to journal at the end. This is also a great resource to use after you’ve come back from a “real” retreat—you’ll learn how to keep your retreat going and how to make more time for creativity. (When you click this link, you’ll get to see a flip-through of the entire book to see if it’s a good fit for you!)

Food Gift Love: More than 100 Recipes to Make, Wrap, and Share – I had the opportunity to meet Maggie Batista, the author of this wonderful book at The Hello Sessions a few years ago, and I will tell you this: she is every bit as authentic as this book. Her philosophy for gift-giving is to make a little extra to share as well as to keep the supplies for gift-giving in the kitchen so you can easily wrap a little present and give it away. Her recipes are the kind you want to immediately make, and they are simple enough for a beginner.

 

Gifts for the Artist or Wannabe Arteest

Supplies:

A miniature sketchbook to take everywhere (this one’s my favorite) – A sketchbook with several nice pens is a great gift for someone who is creative. I love drawing stories in mine about the mini-adventures we go on as a family. I also use mine as a happy journal.

A happy journal – Speaking of a happy journal (a cross between a gratitude journal and an art journal), you can get started with your own with this happy journal bundle. I’m telling you, once you start, you won’t want to start! They are so much fun and such an encouragement too. You can spread the love and give your kids a printable happy journal too. My kiddo loves hers!

A favorite pen (or several!) – This might sound funny to you, but I will guarantee you that your creative friend has a favorite pen. And it also might surprise you that most likely that pen isn’t very expensive. Right now, I’m loving the Pentel Arts Hybrid Technica and my daughter LOVES Signo pens by Uni-ball. Smart kid.

Watercolor Pencils – I’ve been using watercolor pencils for several years and love how versatile they are. They work just like a regular colored pencil except after you lay down the color, you can paint water over it and the colors blend like watercolors. They are fantastic to bring along with a small sketchbook and a gel pen for traveling.

For additional watercolor pencil fun, check out the book, Quick & Clever Watercolour Pencils. It makes creating scenery paintings completely doable even for the complete beginner.

Bind-It-All machine – I LOVE my Bind-It-All. I had always wanted to spiral-bind my homemade journals but a real binding machine is no joke. They’re large and not cheap. The Zutter Bind-It-All machine is very small but it does a great job punching paper and even chip board covers. I love this little machine! (Here’s a tutorial of a sketchbook I made for my daughter with this machine.)

Brush lettering pens – I love Tombow markers. The End. Seriously, though. I have bins of markers and pens, and these are the only ones that have lasted. Other brush pens have the problem of a.) the brush part fraying or b.) the felt tip getting crushed. They’re versatile too, with one end a felt brush for lettering and other a thinner point for drawing.

Gel printing plates – Gel printing plates are a really simple way to create prints. As in they’re simple enough to use with kids, and you can try a lot of different materials in your printing.

Dye your own cotton yarn – These yarn dying kits look like so much fun! This would be such a treat to give to someone who enjoys knitting and crocheting.

Learning:

Learn Brush Lettering – Olivia from Random Olive created an entire guide on brush lettering for beginners. She takes you through practicing the very basic strokes all the way to making words. Brush lettering is so calming—I love practicing in the evenings after a long day—AND it’s also fun to learn this skill. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be brush lettering more projects in the future!

Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun – I wrote a post about how much fun this series of books is. This particular one is my current favorite, and I’m slowly but surely working my way through it. It’s great for an artist who is just beginning as well as someone who wants to mix things up a bit and learn some new techniques. We also love the version for kids.

30 Minute Jewelry: What Can You Make to Wear in Half an Hour or Less? – by Bev from the blog, Flamingo Toes, is a treasure. If you’ve ever dabbled with the idea of learning how to make jewelry, this book is for you. Bev’s tutorials are always detailed, interesting, and so super creative. You could also get this book and then make a whole bunch of projects to give as gifts.

The Artist’s Way – I read this book several years ago and wanted to shout, “Hurray!” as I read it. Author Julia Cameron walks through many practices for artists that are very helpful. I think it’s also a great book for the budding writer in your life.

Illustration School: Let’s Draw Cute Animals – I think at this point we’ve bought this book for every family we know that has little kids. We pull this book out all the time so we can learn how to draw things other than princesses and ballerinas (although those are very important to be able to draw too.) I like how the drawings are broken down and are very easy to replicate. (For some reason, some illustration books are not very good at doing that.)

Learn Calligraphy with The Postman’s Knock – Oh my goodness, if you have a friend who wants to learn hand-lettering or calligraphy, you’ve got to check out The Postman’s Knock. She offers tutorial pdfs (and video too!) that are so affordable you won’t believe it. (Seriously, most of them are $5.00.) I’ve purchased several of these tutorials and have enjoyed learning from them.

Clementine Embroidery Patterns – My husband bought me one of these patterns a couple of years ago, and it’s so beautiful. The stitches are fairly simple (straight stitch, stem stitch, french knots), and there are illustrated directions should you need a reminder of how to make the stitches. I really like how this company is run by a mom and her two very creative daughters.

Wreck This Journal – Here’s a great book for the artist who is a recovering perfectionist or who wants to break out of a rut. Keri Smith offers page after page of exercises that will have you stomping on your journal, scribbling all over the pages, and well, having a lot of fun. She has released a lot of versions of this book so you can find one for pretty much every artist friend on your list, young or old(er) alike!

Creativebug membership – This is basically heaven for your creative friend, especially if she’s a learner at heart. You can gift a month or two membership (or even a year!) and your friend will gain access to thousands of online classes taught by professionals. (You can try your first month for free by clicking this link!) Creativebug offers classes that range from art journaling to quilting to cake decorating.

A Virtual Retreat for Your Friend (or You!)

Happy Journal Virtual Retreat – I created this retreat to help you take a bit of time for yourself to create. You’ll receive 3 video lessons to create fun pages for your happy journal, a Happy Journal, Happy Life book (or eBook if you’re an international customer), and more! Check it out here and enjoy a retreat from the comfort of your own home!

Gifts for Anyone

A gift card for coffee or tea + a homemade treat – Here’s a recipe for chocolate cake mix cookies that is amazing and another for peppermint bark brownies. Pair these with a gift card for a favorite coffee place (or a bag of coffee, whatever works), and you’re set.

Encouragement Cards – Everyone has their down days and creatives are no exception. Make a set of encouragement cards for your friend to let them know you care. You can download a set of free cards here.

Decadent Hot Chocolate Mix – Ever since discovering this homemade hot chocolate mix, my perception of hot chocolate has completely changed. For a chocolate lover, it’s possibly shameful to admit I never really liked hot chocolate. But now I realize I never really liked hot chocolate mixes. With this recipe, that problem has been solved. Real semisweet chocolate, a touch of vanilla, a hint of salt, all melting into the milk of your choice.  Mix this up for your friend, and they will love you for forever.

Joanna Basford’s Christmas coloring book – You might as well join the coloring book craze and Basford’s books are delightful. Her latest book chronicles the world under the sea.

Wood Slice Christmas ornament – I made a bunch of these one year and attached them to mason jar gifts. The ornament functioned as a Christmas tag of sorts. They were sooo cute! And they’re so easy to make with this tutorial too.

Phew, what a list! I hope as you read through this, you were able to find something to give to those wonderful creative people in your life (or let’s be honest, maybe you just found a lot of great things to put on your list!)

Hope you all have a wonderful {and creative} day!

Oh, before you go, click over here to see my Art Journaling Gift Guide!