18 last-minute DIY holiday gifts for friends and family

We love looking for easy last-minute DIY holiday gifts each year that show our friends we care, but not all of us are gifted crafters who can knit a pair of mittens while watching a Christmas movie,  or eke out the time for a complex 40-step DIY tutorial while trying to you know, have a life.

So, we’ve searched for some easy least-minute DIY holiday gifts all from crafts that we know we actually can make.

Are you still shopping? Yeah, we are too. Here are quick links to all of our holiday gift guides this year! May the shipping deadlines and the local store opening hours be ever in your favor.

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Wonderful last-minute DIY gifts that make for some very thoughtful gifting

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Homemade Stovetop Simmer Potpourri…6 Ways

Make a big batch of delicious-smelling DIY Christmas stovetop potpourris to hand out throughout the holidays, using any one of six wonderful recipe options from Country Hill Cottage. I love the variety of choices using all kinds of dried and spices you may already have on hand (or she has links to purchase). She also provides great ideas for packaging them; don’t miss the free printable labels you can affix for gifting to make them look just a little more pro.

Helpful Supplies
– Set of mason jars
– Pretty velvet ribbon
– Dried fruit slices in bulk (See her site for more ideas)
– Cheesecloth bags, as an alternative to mason jars

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Sugar Spice Body Scrubs

Featured in our Homemade mason jar spa gift ideas all with safe, edible ingredients post, these three holiday sugar spice scrubs with a DIY tutorial from Hello Glow allow the best smells of the holidays to hang around a little longer.

Helpful Supplies
– Peppermint essential oils or a scent like cinnamon leaf from our favorite brand.
– Alternately, try set of 6 essential oils in seasonal scents like apple cider,  gingerbread and more
– Small 8 oz mason jars
– Turbinado sugar
– A nice organic, sustainable coconut oil

Related: 15 thoughtful DIY gifts for teenage girls

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Handmade Photo Ornaments

Photo ornaments are always a fun gift for family, and we love this fun iPhone photo ornamental twist that Elba at Live Colorful created for Chica Circle. The site isn’t fully functional now, but you can still follow along with the text tutorial on the site. Don’t want to deal with modeling clay? Cheat and use a heavy card stock instead.

Or an easier cheat — stop by a local card store or craft store and find a photo ornament frame. Tuck yours inside and..instant gift!

Helpful Supplies
– Air-dry modeling clay
– Mod Podge (we found a set that includes brushes)
– Craft roller

Last-minute DIY Gifts for friends: Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix Mason Jars

The layers in this easy, last-minute  DIY homemade hot chocolate mix gift idea from Love Grows Wild look so delicious. There are even two sets of free printable tags–one with ingredients and one without–to finish off your gift. Oh, and if you love the idea of easy edible mason jar gifts you can make, we’ve got loads of easy mason jar gift ideas on Cool Mom Eats — so easy the kids, can help. Or do it themselves.

Helpful Supplies
– Small 8 oz mason jars or get generous using a Set of mason jars
– Brown card stock for the labels
– Elevate the flavor with hazelnut powdered creamer
– We found a hormone-free, pasture-raised powdered milk
– Organic, non-GMO cocoa powder that’s still affordable

Related: 16 mason jar food gifts your kids can help DIY, from sweet to savory. 

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Easy Homemade Succulent Planters

As a newly obsessed plant parent, I adore these easy DIY succulent planters from Hello Glow, which make great last-minute DIY gifts. You can customize each one to your loved one’s personality, making them extra special using her instructions on the site.

Helpful Supplies
– A tiny easy-to-grow succulent – this set of 4 is so affordable!
– Sculpey Polymer Clay like Sculpey
– Krazy Glue (keep away from kids!)
wax paper
rolling pin

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: A cCever Book-Filled Ornament

Have a voracious reader on your Christmas list? Grab their end-of-year Bookshop.org, B&N, or Amazon reading lists or some of their all-time favorite books and you can make this amazingly clever mini book-filled ornament from Lacy Loves Lit. Alternatively, fill it with your favorite Christmas or Hanukkah books if you don’t know what they read. Brilliant.

Helpful Supplies
– A set of clear plastic ornaments
– Pretty velvet ribbon

More Ideas for a Literary Lover’s Ornament

This DIY holiday gift would also be a huge hit for English teachers, writers, or members of your book club. Fill them with the books you read this year, or create a genre theme like, say…classic holiday books or the original Wizard of Oz First Edition book covers for fans of Wicked. Big h/t to @hadl Hadley Leggett who shared her own results on Twitter, above, and made us think wow, we can maybe even do one for ourselves!

Related: More than 60 amazing holiday gifts for kids under $15: GOOD ones. Not stocking stuffers!

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Home-Baked treats 

All food makes a great last-minute DIY gift if it’s made from the heart, right? Featured a few years back in our roundup of 9 easy, delicious homemade food gifts for people who love to eat, this gingerbread biscotti recipe from My Ginger Garlic Kitchen makes a wonderful gift, packaged in a tin or pretty box. Plus, we can just imagine how amazing your house will smell as you bake these treats!

Helpful Supplies
– Christmas parchment paper bags or Cellophane bags
– Holiday colored twist ties to seal the bags
– Hanukkah gingerbread house gift boxes

Related: We love these 10 festive ways to package Christmas cookie gifts 

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Peanut Butter Fudge Dreidels

Every side is a winner on these hard-to-resist homemade peanut butter dreidels from Oh Nuts. Of course, you can make these chocolate dreidels with any kind of nut butter or seed butter, if allergies are an issue and you want to be sure everyone can partake. But the Organic Peanut Butter from Oh Nuts — amazing.

Helpful Supplies
– Hanukkah tissue paper
– Hanukkah food gift boxes

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Easy Wooden Coasters

These easy beaded wooden coasters from Lark & Linen are customizable to match your friend’s room decor, favorite colors, or even sports team colors for Sunday game day. And, if your kids are old enough to put beads on string, voila! Helpers!

Helpful Supplies:
– Unpainted wooden beads
– Colored wooden beads
– Leather string (hurry, on sale right now!)

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Easy Sharpie Personalized Mugs

These four easy DIY Sharpie mugs designs from Jennifer Maker are one of our all-time favorite last-minute DIY gifts from the kids to the parents and grandparents, teachers, sitters, tutors, coaches, and even friends. Just tuck in a pack of hot cocoa. Don’t miss all her tips to make sure your design lasts a long, long time.

Helpful Supplies
– This mugs and markers set!
– Modern letter stickers are a big help

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Essential Oil Bath and Body Gifts

Our editor Liz’s favorite essential oils make the most amazing-smelling last-minute gifts for friends, like the DIY desk diffusion salts to help make a friend’s home office smell beautiful — even if they have to change the occasional diaper nearby or have a dog at their feet. The site has a ton of wonderful DIY essential oil recipes on the Aura Cacia site for inspiration!

Helpful Supplies
– Frankincense and Bergamot essential oils
– Coarse-grind pink Himalayan salt (so nice to look at too!)
– A pretty jar

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: Handmade Trinket Dishes

Transform craft clay into these pretty jewelry trays, trinket dishes, or loose change bowls with a tutorial from Lisa Storms. We’ve loved these little trays since we first discovered them way back in 2014 (!!) and had shared them in our guide to 7 gorgeous handmade clay gifts for mom from easy to wow. A full decade later, they’re still perfect little last-minute DIY holiday gifts. Even if you don’t have a lot of time to spare.

Helpful Supplies
– Sculpey Polymer Clay or this air-dry clay
– Embossed Christmas rolling pins

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for friends: Holiday Pillar Candles, No Wax-Pouring Necessary

We love how a set of inexpensive prayer candles from Amazon or a local craft store can be easily transformed into brightly colored, festive pillars of light. Just use the downloadable Christmas neighbor gif pack of printables from our friends at Caravan Shoppe — just $6 for a lot of festive labels that inspire even more ideas for last-minute DIY gifts for your friends, neighbors, kids’ teachers, salon…and.anyone who could use a little kindness.

Helpful Supplies
– Prayer candles (12 for $30, on sale)
– Tiny decorative bottles of matches in a festive color.

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: All the Cookie Balls!

Packaged in a small white takeout container, I don’t know anyone who would turn down these delicious no-bake Peppermint Oreo tTuffles from Two Twenty One. If you like these, we have 11 more fun holiday-cookie ball recipe ideas for you to consider, from super easy to wildly impressive. Time to hit that candy cane aisle!

Helpful Supplies
– Holiday food gift boxes…that even work through New Year’s Eve!
– Or go with classic white Chinese takeout containers wrapped with festive ribbon

Related: 12 cool gift boxes to send last-minute to anyone on your holiday list

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: DIY Morse Code Bracelets

These DIY morse code message bracelets from the site Honestly WTF are a cool way to remind friends, teens, or pretty much anyone in your life that you love them, without big I LOVE YOU beads. Add a personal note translating the morse code message on the bracelet, and it will be your little secret.

Helpful Supplies
– Silk beading cord with needle ends (for easy threading!)
– Glass seed bead set (on sale!)

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: DIY Hair Elastics in a Vintage Case

We see these everywhere and turns out they’re so easy to make! A tutorial from The Crafting Chicks shows how you can DIY hair elastics in a big batch in a really short time. If you’re giving to family, pair them with a cool vintage heirloom case or tin that you want to pass on. If you’re giving them are for a child’s friend or teacher, consider adding a gift card for a mani/pedi. (Image above: Minted)

Helpful Supplies
– Glitter elastic ribbon

Last-Minute DIY Gifts for Friends: DIY Embroidered Ornament

If you’re handy with a needle and thread, grab the PDF for this DIY embroidered ornament pattern at I Heart Stitch Art on Etsy, or browse her shop for other funny, irreverent, or beautiful and traditional ornament designs.

Helpful Supplies
– Cross-stitch fabric
– Embroidery floss (ie, thread)
– Embroidery hoops

Last-Minute DIY gifts for Friends: DIY Sweatshirt with Iron-On Letters

How fun is this  DIY après ski sweater from François et Moi (whose tutorial is very helpful!). Use iron-on letters to spell out any message for your BFF –an inside joke, an inspirational message, or maybe the destination for this year’s girls’ trip! Liz’s daughter even used this idea to make a funy tee for her grandfather, and he wears it every chance he gets.

Helpful Supplies
– Inexpensive iron-on letters (this shop has a great selection)
– Comfy sweatshirts (these are 50% off, under $10!)

See our entire Holiday Gift Guide for lots of gifts for anyone on your list!