Jar of Hairlice

One of our favourite home made gifts were jars of Hairlice. It looks and sounds terrible, but it is a delicious, aromatic sugar blend that tastes absolutely divine when added to coffee instead of regular sugar. It makes a slightly sadistic and humongously hilarious homemade gift.

Tinned Baby Poo

The best presents either taste delicious or make you laugh. We have created a gift that does both - Tinned Baby Poo! You can make it yourself for less than $2 per tin.

This is one of our favourite gifts to give. It's funny, the reactions are priceless, it looks great and tastes great too. Yes, it really does taste great! This is because the 'baby poo' is actually yummy caramel, made from boiled sweetened condensed milk.

When people open their gift of 'baby poo' they look a little surprised. I love watching people trying to work out whether or not it really is a tin of 'Baby Poo'. They start by reading the entire label, turning the can around and checking all the seams. This is on the back of the tin.

Then they ask, 'Where did you get it?' or 'How did you get it in the tin?'. This is when you reveal your secret, that it's boiled sweetened condensed milk. Then there is a long pause, they take a deep breath, look relieved, smile and say, 'Yum. My grandma used to make that. I love it!'

To make your own, start by peeling the label off four tins of sweetened condensed milk.

Place some loose cutlery in the bottom of a large pot and fill with water. This is important, as you don't want your tins to be touching the bottom of the pot, otherwise they can over cook.

Carefully place your tins into the pot, making sure they are completely covered with water and the bottom of each one is touching the cutlery, not the pot.

Bring everything to the boil and simmer for two hours.

Once the tins are cool, remove them from the water.

Dry the tins thoroughly to stop them rusting.

Print and cut out your baby poo labels, then once the cans are completely cool and dry, stick them on.

As you can see, the caramel really does look like baby poo!

This is what the Simple Savings 'Baby Poo' labels look like.

If you are a Vault member you can use our labels or you can make your own labels for free with Canva. If you would like to learn more about our Savings Vault read our article 20,000+ Savings Tips. If you are logged in and you are a Vault member you can download the labels by clicking this link.

T-shirts Transfers

I love cool t-shirts!!

I love buying them! I love giving them! I love wearing them! I love my kids wearing them!

But, I hate paying $30 for them.

Then I found I can make funny affordable t-shirts with an inkjet printer, t-shirt transfers and an iron for $5-$10 per shirt.

Now I make cool, funny, funky shirts for $5-$10 per t-shirt.

And, so you can also make cool shirts. We have made you printable transfers to download.

You can find full instructions here on how to use these.

Wide designs (adult shirts)

Click on the image to go to the shirt.

Narrow designs (adult & kids shirts)

T-shirt Transfer Tutorial

If you would like to learn more about how to make your own shirts. Click here

Troll Blood

Have you ever felt like gathering up all the trolls online, pounding them into pieces and grinding up their bones into a delicious chocolate sauce? Yes? No? We have.... which was the inspiration for this funny and much loved DIY gift.

Troll Blood is the perfect gift. Whether it be for someone you like such as a teacher, friend, relative or an enemy. It is perfect because it is affordable, hand made, funny and VERY, VERY TASTY!!

Troll Blood

Here is the recipe (and all important labels) to make two delicious jars of 'Troll Blood' to give to loved ones and others who share your dislike for trolls!

Makes 2 x 1 litre jars

Shopping list:

• 2 x 1 litre jars ($6)
• 1 box (380g) cocoa ($4)
• 2kg sugar ($2)
• Vanilla essence
• Salt

Labels:

Print out labels

Glue stick

Scissors

Ingredients

• 2kg sugar
• Box of cocoa (380g)
• 1 litre water (or coffee)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbs vanilla essence

Put sugar and cocoa in a really big stock pot. Stir together to remove all the lumps from the cocoa. Add liquid (water or coffee) and salt. Turn stove to high and stir continually. When it is boiling, turn heat to medium. Keep stirring and watching. If it gets too hot it will bubble over. Let syrup simmer until it thickens, about 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla essence.

Pour into two jars. When cooled add your labels.

And now you have two awe-inspiring, home-made gifts for a tiny $6 each! It is the ultimate frugal gift.

Here are the chocolate sauce labels referred to in the [December 2015 newsletter][1].

Detailed views are further down the page, along with the recipe.

First, the PDFs for you to download: