The Source: Free and/or Digital Gifts

If you need a gift and you need it now or for-no-money—this one is for you.

Oh wait, did you think we were done with gift guides? The one thing I have come to understand in the past month is that people love gift guides. But now—here we are, it’s December nineteenth. If you’re looking for a gift now, you probably need it quite immediately. And if you’ve been putting it off, maybe you also need it to not cost any money either. Well, well, well—this is the gift guide for you!

Free Gifts!

• Compose a custom crossword puzzle featuring all your favorite inside jokes. To use this free crossword puzzle generator, you simply input your words and clues and it’ll set up the whole thing for you. Voila, you are a genius!

• Make your own watercolor paints! Here’s a link for instructions on how to mix up the paint. You can use a (probably plastic is better) egg carton for the set—or maybe a pill organizer—OR those tiny Altoids tins—OR remember this one with the magnetic shells (cute).

• Forage and arrange a wreath or wintery dried arrangement! (Just make sure you have permission to forage first…) Drawing inspiration from fellow Midcoaster Rachel Alexandrou who makes incredible wreaths of foraged plant materials.

• Polymer clay, all day, any day, everyday. In this example, I’m assuming you already keep plenty of polymer clay (that’s Sculpey, Fimo, etc.) on-hand, right? That’s normal? LOTS of ideas here: coasters, napkin rings, keychains, candlesticks, incense holder, beads, catch-all dish. Or anything at all in from this book. A giant sun-face, just to hang, for the fun of it!

Digital gifts!

• I am notoriously terrible at my own PR, but I would be really extra-extra bad if I failed to mention that you can give a gift subscription of Treehouse! The perfect gift! One size fits most! They’re gonna love it.

• There are a lot of online learning platforms these days, but new to me is that Uncommon Goods has their own. And they are just a little more whimsical and, uh, uncommon as you’d imagine: You can give your person a class in anything from songwriting 101 to tarot to pesto ravioli. Fun!

• There are gift cards for basically every company or entity you can think of, BUT I think this is a nice one: OpenTable! You can take your person out for a meal, even if you aren’t there to physically pick up the check. Search by location and find participating restaurants almost anywhere.

• Fender Play is the guitar company’s online lesson portal—and you can give access for a 3, 6, or 12 month pre-paid period. (Unfortunately this one runs through Amazon—I tried to get around it!!)

I would (and I bet everyone else would, too) love to hear from you, Treehouse Humans: Let us know if you have any other fun free and/or digital gift ideas by popping them in the comments!

💝