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Along with re-gifting toys another great way to save some money at the holidays is to make some simple gifts.  I will post some ideas and I'm hoping others will join me in offering suggestions.

Crayon Rolls - These make great gifts for any child who loves to color and is a great alternative to the boxes taht always seem to get ruined. There is a free tutorial Here - http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/projects/t_colortimetogo.aspx

Pillow Case Dresses are simple and cheap to make for little girls.  They only require a pillowcase and ribbon, and some basic sewing skills.

Totebags are also simple to make and are great for children who like to take lots of things along with them.

Bible covers with handles are also nice and can be personalized for boys or girls and made to the size of their Bibles.  Even with a little slot for holding a pen and a small notebook for older children.

Marshmallow guns make great gifts for little boys and can be made using leftover pieces of pvc pipe, and can be painted to match their personality!

Handmade notebook covers, perfect for covering .25 composition notebooks, make really nice journals for the young ladies on your list

Handmade bean bags can be given to children along with homemade bean bag toss games. 

Find it pillows are great for toddlers.

Making pillows is also inexpensive, and I have not yet met a child who wouldn't love to snuggle up to several pillows in bed.  Body pillows are also very popular and way expensive in stores but much cheaper to make by hand. 

Those are my ideas, I'd love to hear others, and I hope these help others with some inexpensive ideas for Christmas.  As a side note all of my fabrics come from clearance sales, or goodwill, same with fiberfill for pillows.

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Another idea I forgot to mention is curtains for personalizing their bedrooms!  Tab curtains are so easy to make, and can be made special for every child.  I will be making some this year to hang on my son's bed to make it into a little hideout! 

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I know I have mentioned several time I am not crafty, however, once I found these really cool shower curtians on clearance and I bought 2 pair. They are pink and glittery in a silky, cool type of fabric. I tied pretty ribbon in each hole to form a loop and made my own curtians for my dd's bedroom. She still has them. 

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Well, heartsathome if you'd like a pillowcase dress for your little girls let me know I'll make one for you   They are fun and SIMPLE!  I love making them, unfortunately the Good Lord didn't see fit to bless me with a little girl (though I'm sure he knew what he was doing)

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Really great ideas! I haven't sewed since middle school home ec class. I wasn't that great at it then I have really been wanting to get back into it though.

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I love to make stuff. Here are a few of my fav ideas. I'm being lazy tonight, so instead of posting individual links, I'll just say that you can find pictures and/or instructions for most of these things on my blog, if you are interested, and need any further info.  www.cheeriosunderfoot.blogspot.com

Felt toy food can be sewed by hand or machine. Felt is cheap, washable, and my kids love their felt food.

Felt play mats for match box cars, toy dinosaurs, or whatever else are pretty easy and cheap too.

I made a felt mail play set for the kids too. My kids love mail.

Felt puppets or finger puppets are also easy.

You can make home made bath toys out of craft foam from the dollar store.

Pillowcase dresses are easy, and can be sewed assembly line style if you want to make several. I made a dozen in August for a fun charity project.

As far as adult gifts go, knit or crochet washcloths are an easy beginner project. They cost about a buck to make, if you pay full price for the yarn, and people love them. They really are nicer than store bought ones.

I make lots of totebags, and sometimes buy inexpensive, (less than a buck a piece at Hobby Lobby on sale,)  muslin totebags, and tie dye them. If you've never tie dyed before, there is a little bit of a learning curve to learn some of the more difficult designs, but even a beginner can turn out pretty, colorful projects.

On a similar note, the large thin tea towels from Dollar Tree tie dye great. You could also decorate them with the kids' handprints, stamps, or machine embroidery.

I've made a couple of really awesome and much coveted t shirt quilts. We have one made out of our old concert t shirts.I made one for my daughter for Christmas this year out of old tie dye shirts. My brother in law wants me to make some out of his old Harley Davidson shirts. Kids could use shirts from their sports teams or whatever. I'm a terrible quilter. Truly awful, but these are so cool that no one notices the wonky stitching.

Melt and pour soap is easy enough to make with older kids, as long as they're supervised.

I make most of the projects more affordable by waiting until the materials go on sale. If I need a bag of melt and pour soap base, yarn, fiberfill, etc, I usually wait until I can use a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby.

Thanks for listening to me gush about crafting. 

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Really great ideas! I haven't sewed since middle school home ec class. I wasn't that great at it then I have really been wanting to get back into it though.

I just wanted to add that I was so awful in home ec class that I was never able to thread the sewing machine on my own. In the end, I asked my friend to sew the one project were actually being graded for. (Not my proudest moment, I know.)
Don't let that deter you from diving in though, if you want to learn. I frequently have trouble using the remote control for the tv. If I can sew, anyone can.

*edited for typos, sorry.*

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ooh, Soap!  I could get some melt soap, little shape molds, and add some of my EO for fragrance....then give them in little baskets lined with a washcloth and small hand towel!  Great idea!  thanks!  And the boys can help make the soap

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Birbitt,
You can usually get cute silicone ice cube trays at Dollar Tree that make great molds for little guest soaps. Right now they have pumpkins and skulls, at Christmas last year they had Christmas trees, etc. They're cheaper and more durable than the hard plastic molds, in my experience.
Just a heads up, in case you're interested.

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You guys are all way more crafty than I am! Maybe you can teach me a thing or to on "crafting for dummies". 

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I thought of another one. Home made bath salts are easy and cheap to make, and would make a really cool gift when combined with some melt and pour soap and a knitted/crocheted wash cloth. Total cost if you were making in bulk, (like for all those neighbors/ladies at church/random gift exchanges, etc) would probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of three dollars a gift if you were thrifty with materials.

You can buy containers of Epsom salt at the Dollar store, use food coloring from the kitchen, and one bottle of essential oil costs between 5-10 bucks, but it goes a long way. (I'm making peppermint scented soap and bath salt today. It smells great.) We eat pesto sauce that comes in small canning jars that are a nice size to be reused for the bath salts. (Is it weird that we eat a lot of pesto?)

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Wow, haven't been back here in a while...I think I can do some of these ideas like the ice cube tray soaps and the bath salts.

Can you give me specific instructions or a link on the "melt soaps" thing... no clue what y'all are talking about but sounds easy enough!

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Leigh
I usually buy the melt and pour soap in a large bag at hobby lobby. I think it's a 5 pound bag, and it's usually about 15 bucks, but I wait until I can use a 40% coupon.    Five pounds will make a lot of soap.

You'll take a few blocks of the soap base, put it in a microwave safe container, (I like to use a pyrex measuring cup,) and melt the soap. In my microwave, it takes about a minute, but you'll just have to watch and see. After the soap base is melted, quickly add a few drops of essential oil, and regular old liquid food coloring, mix, and pour into the molds.  If you use the small silicone molds it's super easy to unmold when the soap is hard. If you use a hard plastic mold, you can put the soap in the freezer for a few minutes after it's hard to ease in unmolding.

That's basically it. The kids love it when you buy little plastic bugs and  snakes, and embed them in the soap. (This naturally requires a larger mold.)

Melt and pour soap is one of those super easy crafts that people are always impressed with.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

I've actually got a post coming on my blog tomorrow about making bath salts with the kids the other day. They had a lot of fun with it. I'll try to remember to come link back to it.

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Here's a link to a little tutorial about making bath salts with the kids. 

http://cheeriosunderfoot.blogspot.com/2010/10/bath-salts-with-kids.html

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That's great! Thank you! Have some Q's I'll ask here instead of letting everyone in blog world know I'm an idiot, too. I'll try to confine that knowledge somewhat 

Where do I find essential oil? Is it called that on the bottle?

How much oil and how much food coloring for the size you made?

When I seal the jars, do I just screw on the lids or do I need to do it specially, like I'm canning or something?