Tomorrow is our gift carnival! Please join us and share your gift ideas!
Gifts don’t have to be overpriced and meaningless. They can be creative, meaningful, and even frugal. Today I wanted to share a simple recipe for a hand crafted tea blend, blooming rooibos (blossoms mixed with rooibos) and some other ideas. This particular gift is a cinch to put together, so even the busiest of us can do it. Given with a mug, tea strainer, tea spoon, or honey stick, it can make a nice hostess, friend, or relative gift.
Christmas can be a rush of activity and gift giving is often just another item on the to do list. Buying meaningful gifts aren’t always top priority-just getting any gift will do. However, when you are on a budget like we are, you have to get a little creative. And being more creative has helped us sometimes give much more meaningful gifts!
Last year we were really tight budget wise and we will be again this year. Since both of us are piano teachers, we get an enforced Christmas break since no one wants to have music lessons during the Holidays. As a daughter of a truck driver who had to work really hard to try to get holidays off, I really appreciate the extra time with my husband (though he goes a little bonkers without work to do!). But it does mean that we have to be really careful during December not to overspend. Last year we spent hours sorting through books at book sales to find a book for each of our family members. The cost was minimal, but I think that the time we took to find interesting books for everyone was meaningful. My sister and husband did a lovely thing by giving the gift of compassion. They bought gifts of chickens, water, clothes, etc for the poor in our name and gave us a description of the gift along with a small gift. A lovely gesture.
We could just tell friends and family that we are on a tight budget with Joel in school, but I love gift giving. It shows love and appreciation and a desire to express that. I think that specially thought out gifts, whether handmade or not fulfill that.
This little gift it a wonderful way to express love to a tea lover. And you know what? It fits in my budget too. Earthy and smooth rooibos is paired with blooms from the lavender and chamomile plants. Rooibos is very high in antioxidants and it one of our personal favorite teas. The lavender and chamomile is both soothing and relaxing. You can buy all of these ingredients at New Seasons Market in the bulk section, if you live in the Portland area. But Mountain Rose Herbs should also have all of it, which is where I got my rooibos.
Blooming Rooibos
1 cup of red rooibos (Cost: 1.30
1/4 cup of dried lavender (.30)
1/2 cup of chamomile flowers (.30
Mix together and place in a pretty container for giving. Total cost, 1.90 for the tea plus the container and whatever else you want to give with it.
And this is really just the beginning of ideas. If you could get your hands on the ingredients, a local tea shop near here also adds orange tree blossoms and rose petals to the above. It’s lovely.
I’ve also given Chai Rooibos by blending rooibos with chai spices. Delicious! You could make a more tart version with vitamin C rich rosehips too. Make one batch, or make several different flavor combinations and give a combo gift. The possibilities are endless.
Other Ideas:
I recently shared Nature’s Candy Box, which featured chocolate covered nuts and dried fruit. I gave the chocolate covered macadamia nuts to many of my relatives last year.
Caramel Popcorn is always a delicious treat and makes a great sweet gift.
Homemade Fudge has always been a big hit around here, just make sure you tell whoever receives it that it must be kept in the fridge.
And home candied nuts are a great addition to a gift basket or given in a small tin solo.
For non food gifts, I love browsing Martha Stewart’s site. She has some fabulous handmade gift ideas, some frugal some not.
To do what my sister did, make a contribution to some of these great organizations in the name of the receiver. Compassion, Samaritan’s Purse (where you can pay for a child to learn to read and write, a plane ticket to save a life, rescue a child from abuse, or give money for shoes and clothes), or give a donation to IJM and help rescue a girl from the sex trafficking. Now those are gift’s worth giving.
So there are just a few of my ideas! I can’t wait to see what yours are. Come back tomorrow and share them as part of the Gift Carnival!
Latest posts by KimiHarris (see all)
- 2 Ingredient Peppermint Bark - December 21, 2022
- Herbal Hibiscus Lemonade (Keto, THM) - March 16, 2022
- Creamy Curry Red Lentil Soup - December 8, 2021
This is a great post. Thank you so much for the ideas!
Where did you buy the round tin for the tea? Thanks!
Hi Jean,
Good question! I got it at specialtybottle.com. They have a lot of great stuff.
I just recently found and purchased from specialtybottle.com! I love your ideas, I’ve been “brewing” the tea idea around in my head for awhile now. 🙂
We did the tea blends for our gifts two years ago – everyone enjoyed it, and it ended up costing us $45 for about 30 gifts… definitely a good thing 😉
I’ve done little gift baskets the last few years, using small jars of jam/jelly, muslin bags of nuts, and a smaller bag of tea, etc. We always get the containers back (people must realize they can be filled again, because we’ve never asked for them back! 🙂 ) so that’s cut down significantly on the cost. I’m so excited to see some new ideas tomorrow!
Oh how exciting!! I will have to give this tea a try as we have tea drinkers in our family!! And thank you for the reminder, I had forgotten all about the gift carnival. See we are insanely busy this year with a move from Alaska to Indiana, definitely in January but possibly as early as over Christmas!! Right now we are cleaning, sorting, trying to sell the house as well looking via the internet for a new place, and planning for Christmas!! I’ll try and remember to return tomorrow… 🙂
This is a wonderful idea. What kind of usage instructions would you give to someone along with the blooming rooibus?
Thank you
I save pretty jam jars, the nicely shaped ones with golden lids to make bath salts. Mix epsom salt with your favorite essential oil. Add pretty herbs, like lavender flowers. Beautiful and smells good.
You have awesome ideas and are very creative!
I made and gave the rooibos-lavender (no chamomile) tea last year for Christmas; it’s wonderful. This year I’m going to have my boys pick out a small farm animal to “give” through World Vision or make a donation to Cure International to help a child with life-changing surgery. I’m hopeful my 5 and 3 yo will begin to understand the joy of giving and the meaning of Christmas, which is so much more than just getting (more toys). I can’t wait to see what other creative ideas are suggested. I’m eager to get started on this year’s gift making.
Kim, would you mind giving your recipe for the Chai Rooibos? You do a great job! Carol
Very lovely! I really like rooibos tea. I see you and I have the same idea for gift mixes – I made Chai Tea for mine. 🙂 Thanks for hosting this carnival – I have looked forward to seeing everyone’s ideas!
I love the tea idea, too. Roobis is one of my favorites. I still haven’t decided what to make as gifts for the people at my husband’s office. They get my baked goods all year long so I want it to be something special – and at the same time it has to have a ‘mainstream’ feel – something healthier but not overtly so. I’ve been thinking about homemade spiced nuts, or even the date truffles I made for the carnival. I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone else is making.
I absolutely love tea! My mom was just telling me yesterday that I should try blending my own teas. Thank you for the good ideas. I always enjoy them.
I just made the tea mix with rooibos, lavendar and jasmine flowers layered in a glass spice jar. I think it was about $5 for two jars and enough tea to fill three… so of course I had to taste a little bit of the “extra” with stevia and milk. It was delicious! Thanks for the idea!