Handmade Diwali Gifts: Celebrate this Festive Season with Alluring DIY Diwali Gifts (2019)

Handmade Diwali Gifts: Celebrate this Festive Season with Alluring DIY Diwali Gifts (2019)

Diwali as a festival lends itself beautifully to homemade DIY gifts. From pretty torans and hand painted diyas, to gift baskets and paper lanterns. If you are looking for a little inspiration in addition to creative new ideas for DIY Diwali gifts, you will find loads of both here! We have put together some simple handmade gifts and Diwali craft ideas which are very easy to make and yield great results. Follow our step by step instructions to make creative DIY Diwali gifts this year.

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Why Opt for Do-It-Yourself Diwali Gifts?

  • Affordable and Unique Gifting Option:
    When you make the Diwali decorations all by yourself, then each piece has a special meaning. Be it a homemade candle or a decorative piece, each one of the gifts has a unique attribute. Handmade Diwali decorations are crafted with a lot of love. Not to mention how fun they are to make. The best thing about DIY gifts is that they will not just lay on a shelf, unused. They could be a really nice gift for someone who already has everything. Also, making a DIY gift actually helps you save a lot of money. You can craft a gift for way lesser cost than the alternative in the store. DIY gifts are also memorable and touch the hearts of people that you gift. Personalised gifts are backed up with stories and occupy a special place in the heart of the recipients. Moreover, DIY Diwali gifts come in a variety of options and you will always have plenty of ideas to choose from.

  • Simple Gifts Can Be Customised Using Creative Skills:
    Customised gifts are truly charming and reflect all the thought that has been put in for creating it. You can personalise a simple gift in a variety of ways. Let’s say that you are buying a piece of jewellery for someone. You can get the name of the recipient engraved on it for a personal touch. Likewise, you can customise a smartphone case that you choose for someone by printing a quote they love on it. You can very well depict your affection with personalised gifts. They also signify that you have gone out of your way to give something special to the recipient. Moreover, they are suitable for all ages as well as genders.

  • Recipients Will Appreciate Your Efforts:
    DIY gifts are very well received by those to whom you gift them. Since it takes time and effort to find and make a handmade gift, the recipients will really appreciate this gift that you choose for them. Your gift will stand out from the lot and it is more sentimental as you put a lot of time and energy into making it. Making a DIY gift also gives an outlet for your creativity. It is really fulfilling and you will be proud of your work. If you are not artsy types, you can buy a handmade or handcrafted gift to add a unique touch to the gift.

10 Amazing Ideas for Diwali Gifts You Can DIY

Decorative Diwali Lanterns

Diwali is a festival of lights and gifting a handmade lantern to brighten-up someone's home will be a good idea.

Diwali Paper Lanterns

What you need:
  • A balloon
  • Rice-paper
  • Scissors
  • Glue
  • 1-cup of water, and
  • 1-cup of flour.

How to make it:
  • Start with inflating a balloon, tie a string on top of the balloon to suspend it.
  • Make stripes of rice paper that are about 1/2 to 1-inch wide and are long enough to cover the diameter of the balloon.
  • Now, make a paper mache solution by mixing 1-cup of water and 1-cup one flour. Mix it properly and stir it enough till it becomes lump free.
  • Dip a stripe of rice paper into the mache solution and swipe it between the two fingers to get rid of excess solution.
  • Start attaching the stripes from one end of the balloon; either horizontally or vertically, and keep moving in one direction pressing against the balloon. Repeat the same process for rest of the stripes until the whole balloon gets covered. Make sure that the stripes must overlap each other at the edges to get a finished look.
  • Now, pop up the balloon and cut a small circular opening at the top of the lantern and take the balloon out.
  • Attached a string on the top of the opening for hanging the lantern. For lighting the lantern, use a battery-operated candle, stick it to the bottom of the lantern with the help of cello tape.

Candle Holders

Candle lamps are inspired from the ancient tradition of festivals and gifting a handmade candle holder is a good pick for Diwali. Follow the steps below or check out more detailed steps with pictures at mywoodwall.com.

Candle Holders

What you need:
  • A wooden panel
  • A hand saw
  • One large cup-hook
  • One mason jar with lid
  • A 6-inch chain
  • 12-inches of wire
  • One candle

How to make it:
  • Starting with the wood panel, cut it in proportionate size keeping in mind the size of the jar. However, 12 inches in length would be recommendable for a small jar.
  • Install the cup hook at the quarter bottom part of the wooden plate. Make sure the hook is tightened perfectly to avoid later breakages.
  • Take a wire and wrap it around the neck of the jar and loop it with a chain to fasten it with the jar.
  • To hang the plate on the wall, attach a hook behind the wooden plate and after hanging, insert the jar to the hook and place the candle inside the jar.

Festive Gift Pouches

Your gift pouches should look festive and vibrant and so you should sew it from laminated fabric to make it stand out from the ordinary pouches. We found some pretty DIY fabric pouches at handmadiya.com that will be great to give your Diwali gifts in and are great gifts by themselves.

Fabric Gift Bag

What you need:
  • Two pieces of different cotton cloth
  • A thick hair band
  • Four pieces of holniten, and
  • A large button

How to make it:
  • Cut the two pieces, for the front and back part measuring the length of 24 cm, height 20 cm, depth 5 cm, and the width 8 cm.
  • Now stitch both the cloth individually by merging the sides and keeping the opening unstitched.
  • Attach the thick hair elastic at the center top of one of the stitched cloth and place the other stitched cloth inside the first one and thread the lining inside.
  • Secure the corners with holniten.
  • Sew the button at the quarter part from the top the bag to close the pouch.

Wall Hangings Made of Paper

Gifting paper wall hanging sounds great as it adds an attractive look to the living space. This stunner of an idea from ruffledblog.com uses strung paper punches to make eye catching wall hangings. Use this steps below to understand how to make it and personalise it with your own creativity.

Paper Punch backdrop

What you need:
  • You will need a 2" circle puncher
  • A needle
  • Scissors
  • Embroidery thread, and
  • Card stock

How to make it:
  • Start with making the circles use 2" circle puncher on the card stock to get the circles cut out and ready. You can use the color of your choice or use a mix of different colours. Have a basic design in mind before starting
  • Then cut the embroidery floss to your desired length and thread a needle with it.
  • Alternate the threaded circles between the knots at every 1.5-2 inches.
  • Braid several pieces of embroidery floss to the length you want. Tie the strands of threaded circles to the braid every 2 inches.

Giveaway Paper Envelopes

Source k4craft.com

Giving money for shagun is a popular tradition in Diwali and you can make a handmade envelope for the same. The things you will need to make the envelope is a piece of patterned paper (or a piece of plain colour paper) , a piece of paper for the template, scissors, pen, ruler, and glue.

Start by making a heart-shaped template and cut the patterned paper with the help of the template. You can get templates for other shapes from k4craft.com. Mark the lines to fold the heart-shaped paper as shown in the image above and fold the paper according to the markings. Stick the inner edges with the glue and your envelope is ready for the giveaway.

Glittery Toran for Doors

Making a glittery toran with paper folding technique can be an amazing DIY gift on Diwali. This paper toran is easy enough even for kids to make and can be part of a Diwali gift basket for members of the family.

Glittery Paper Toran

What you need:
  • Fevicryl acrylic color pearl metallic - gold 352
  • Fevicryl 3D cone outliner non-sticky glitter - silver 401
  • Fevicryl fabric glue
  • Fine art canvas sheet, 16

  • Draw big and small flower outlines on A4 size white paper and cut them all.
  • Take a canvas sheet, paint the sheet with pearl metallic-gold acrylic color. Draw some big sized flowers and circles on the sheet and cut along the outline of each flower.
  • Now take a different color glitter foam sheet, draw a small sized flower and a few circles on it.
  • Similarly, cut along the outlines of each flower and circle and using the fabric glue stick, stitch the circles on each of the glitter flowers. Leave it to dry for a few minutes.
  • Cut down the silver ribbon according to the size of the door. Hang each flower by sticking it at equal distance with the help of fabric glue.
  • To make it look more interesting, decorate the silver ribbon with some purple stones using fabric glue.

Decorative Tray for Diwali

On Diwali, gifting a decorative tray to your dear ones will be a unique choice. To prepare a decorative tray all need to have is a wooden tray, thermocol, golden paper, stones or gems, artificial or fresh flowers and plenty of strong glue.

Cover the wooden tray with shimmering gold paper or in any other colour you like. Mount a wall of thermocol around the edges and wrap it up in golden paper with dazzling gems and stones. At the end, to give it an elegant finishing look, decorate one of the corners with the artificial or fresh flowers and your tray is ready to gift.

Try out different designs with assorted decorative material to make different trays for everyone. Pick out the gifts that you want to add to the tray - these could be homemade snacks or sweets or some small Diwali gifts - and build the design around them.

Hand-Painted Diyas

Painting diyas is a fun task that can be done easily in just a few minutes. Browse online to get new ideas and designs for painting your diyas, and then add embellishments to make them look prettier still.

Hand Painted Diyas

What you need:
  • Plain diyas
  • Acrylic paint
  • Paint brushes
  • Gold paint or marker
  • Rhinestones, fake pearls or small embellishments
  • Glue
  • Toothpicks

How to make:
  • Firstly, soak the diyas in water for 1-2 hour. This helps to hold paint better.
  • After it dries, paint the whole diyas or you can apply different color at the outer and the inner surface with some bright shade like red, green, yellow and orange.
  • As the paints dry, decorate the top of the edges with some stones and glue.
  • Moreover, you can paint the top edges with some glitter color like gold and stick the stones or the pearls at the side of the diyas.

Clay Ganesha Idol

Gifting a handmade idol of Lord Ganesha is perhaps the purest way of showing care and love to someone on the occasion of Diwali. We found this wonderful step-by-step method on instructables.com which you can visit to see images and detailed instructions on how to make each step, or if you're a skilled crafter, go ahead and make it using the instructions below.

Clay Ganesh

What you need:
  • Modelling clay
  • Toothpick, and
  • Acrylic paint

How to make:
  • Start by dividing the clay in proportion to make various body parts of the idol.
  • Now start stacking with the base, flatten the pedestal clay to hold stomach and legs. Insert the small piece of toothpick into one end of the base and fix the stomach. This will hold the parts together even after drying.
  • Next, roll out the leg portion in a perfect way to form the shape of the leg. Fix the legs to the stomach and base and merge all edges together to hide the joints.
  • Similarly, roll out the clay and bend it to form the shape of hands. Fix the hands over the stomach and press gently to join them together.
  • To place the face, insert the toothpick in the body and fix the head to it.
  • Same way, fix the ears and roll out the trunk, bend it and fix it to the head.
  • Make the eyes, tusk and 3 tiers of the head crown and back crown with the design of your choice
  • Finally, paint the idol with the colors of your choice.

Bonus Idea: Easy DIY Gift Hamper with Diyas, Chocolate, and Other Goodies

A handmade gift hamper is a really well-thought gift that you can give to your family and friends. To prepare a gift hamper, all you need is a basket - you can choose the size, chocolates, diyas, dry fruits, small gifts, etc., wide ribbons, scissors, some transparent plastic wrap (or a clear wrap with a pattern) and a gift tag.

Start by hiding the bottom of the basket with a shredded paper, grass, or tissue paper. You can also use a shining cloth. Now place all the stuff like chocolate, diyas, and dry-fruits etc. in an artful way to give a perfect look to the basket.

Lastly, cover-up the basket with some transparent net to give it the look of a hamper, make sure the pleating is neat. Ask someone to help you if needed and gather all the ends to make a tidy looking gift pack and tie it with the ribbon. Write a note for the recipient as attach it to the hamper.

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From our editorial team

Making Diwali gifts can be a lot of fun!

Giving gifts has turned into this massively commercialised process with stores and websites trying to lure you in with heavy discounts and fabulous deals. Your shopping can be over and done with in a matter of minutes but where is the personal touch in that? Adding someone's name to a gift hardly requires any effort at all. Turn Diwali gifting into a fun experience by roping in the entire family to craft things. If you have kids, they are naturally inclined to making crafts and since they also make them school they can be of invaluable assistance. You can also buy some gifts but making a portion of your Diwali gifts at home will save you money and let you have fun in the process.