Christmas DIY adventures

Some of the Christmas DIY ideas that will make an appearance soon in @ Home With Heather:

Cutout cookies
Wine jelly (from The Simple Dollar)
Orange chocolates
Christmas cards
Magnets (from Not Martha)
Lightbulb ornaments
and my Diabolical Plan at some point (which I would post, but some surprises cannot be ruined ahead of time)

I'm pretty excited about these endeavors for a few reasons:

1.  Frugality--I discussed this with my father tonight, and broke it down something like this: I could buy six people gifts at $10 a pop, or I could make six jars of jelly:

1 bottle of wine: Approximately $10.
1/2 cup lemon juice: A 32 oz. bottle of my local supermarket's store brand costs $2.49.  1/2 cup = 4 oz., so 1/8 of $2.49 would be roughly $.32.
1 package dry pectin: A grocery shopping adventure in and of itself; I could not find this anywhere on the shelves. After two phone calls to determine where I should be looking, my worst fears were confirmed: this is a seasonal item and canning season, apparently, is over (you should normally be able to find this on the top shelf with the gelatin or in the produce section). However, my mother was kind enough to dig out a package from her pantry for me (FrugalMom stockpiles groceries). Pectin cost me $0.
4 1/2 cups granulated sugar: 4 pounds of the store brand was on sale for $2. However, pounds are a unit of weight and cups are a unit of volume. Using this handy dandy conversion chart I was able to determine that 4 1/2 cups is about 2 pounds, costing me $1 (I hope the lucky recipients of this jelly have great dental insurance).
Mason jars: Essential for the canning of the stuff; I recently saw six for $10.79 at the local grocery store. However, FrugalMom was trying to sell a bazillion of them at her garage sale and I know there are many left over. I will try to have these gifted, or buy them at a discount from her. I'm going to leave these out of the equation for now.

Total cost: $11.32

2.  Gifts with heart--I'm not just doing this because of the Scrooge factor. In Thoughts about Christmas I expressed concern about the marriage of the holiday with consumerism. My real wish is to create something that friends and family will enjoy and might remember in the future. I know some of my favorite gifts didn't add to somebody's bottom line; they were things that somebody put love into.

3. Personal growth--Growing up, the kitchen was strictly Mom's domain. Intruders were scrutinized. As a result, I never fostered an interest in cooking or baking (side note: I feel no animosity towards my mother; she's pretty awesome). Perhaps interest in a new hobby will be sparked, or I can at least develop some fundamental skills.