3 Cheap and Easy DIY Office Gift Ideas for Christmas

The festive season is upon us and workplaces around the globe are getting stuck in to their office Kris Kringle buying spree. But what happens when you have next to no money and get Alison from Accounting who you’ve never even made eye contact with, let alone spoken to? Well guys it’s time to start digging into the wonderful world of Pinterest and making those cute, quirky, office gift ideas an affordable reality!

For the tea (or coffee) lover

What happens when you combine a dip-dyed, swirl effect coffee mug with a polystyrene cone and a cheap packet of mixed tea bags? MAGIC. For all those tea-loves out there, this is one of those cheap, easy to source gift ideas that you could pretty much do in an hour on the weekend. Plus, you can do the same thing with those individual sachets of coffee you can buy at the supermarket, for your coffee-loving colleagues.

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To make the mug, all you need is:

• A deep plastic container (or even one of those disposable aluminium roasting trays from coles)
• A plain white mug
• Nail polish colour of your choice (avoid glitter)
• A toothpick

Then check out the instructions over here!

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To make the ‘tea tree’, all you need is:

• Polystyrene cone
• Tea bags
• Pins

If you want to make it look super-duper special, then check out this slightly more detailed post on how to make your own tea tree, but really you can make do with the above three items if you’re really pressed for resources. Just pin those teabags in layers around from the bottom of the tree to the top, maybe cut out a paper star to stick at the tip, then ta da! You’ve got yourself one nifty tea tea. Just be carefully when pinning to, a) not stab yourself, and b) only pin the top of the teabag packet rather than the actual tea bag itself.

For the snack-a-holic

There’s a reason that mason jars are the underrated champions of craft mums and hipster bars the world over: they literally make everything look a hundred times more wonderful than they actually are.

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What do you need to do? Basically duck down to a two dollar store (or Daiso across the road from uni) and grab a mason jar, some nice ribbon, and maybe some of those sticky labels so you can stick a cute message to the jar.

Then grab your gift-receiver’s favourite candy, empty it into the jar, chuck some ribbon around it and your fancy little label on and there you have it: an amazing desk snacking station for whoever you’re buying for.

A simple alternative to this would be to grab a cheap bait and tackle box from Kmart or Big W, then fill up each individual compartment with a different sweet treat – seriously, you can’t go wrong!

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The mini pamper hamper

This one is so simple that you’ll be kicking yourselves that you didn’t think of it first.

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All you’ll need is:

• A small cardboard box (maybe just a bit bigger than your fist)
• Some tissue paper or streamers
• A couple of small pamper items that would fit in the box (think things like lip balm, emery board, hand cream, mints, hand sanitiser, nail polish, hair ties, small nail kit, or small chocolate)
• Ribbon and a gift tag for decorating

Then all you need to do is fill the box with some artfully scrunched tissue paper (or delightfully arranged streamers), neatly place your chosen small pamper items in the box so that they are displayed nicely when the box is opened, close the box, add the ribbon and gift tag and you’re done! You’ve now got your very own mini pamper hamper to give to your work colleague.

Featured image courtesy of Unsplash