Infused Holiday Magic with DIY Gift Ideas

Welcome back , my friends , to another episode of Bite Me , and

this one is coming out at a time where we're getting close to the big day . If it is Christmas that you're celebrating , perhaps it's not . You might be celebrating somebody or another another holiday , of which there are many this time of year , and I hope you're enjoying your holidays , no matter when and where they happen to be occurring .

But if you are celebrating Christmas , then this episode is coming out . It'll be out a week before , just actually less than a week before Christmas . So tick tock , my friends , am I right Now ?

I know there are some of you are listening who have probably gotten all of your Christmas shopping and baking and all these things done by mid-November , and if that is you , well , I commend you for that level of organization .

Unfortunately , that is not many of us , and so this episode is to help you folks out there who are needing some gift ideas for the upcoming holidays .

It's going to include food , edibles , of course , and body care products , and I personally think that DIY gifts are really thoughtful , they're fun to make and they're perfect for cannabis enthusiasts and the cannabis curious as well . So don't think that DIY gifts are lesser than a store-bought gift . I personally think they're not .

I love getting DIY gifts , like I have a friend who loves to make soap and she'll gift me bars of soap , and I love that because that's what I like to use and it just means that you have poured some of your time , energy and love to the thing that you're making with those people that you're gifting it to in mind , and it's such a special thing to be like

hey , that person was thinking of me while they were making this .

So I hope that you can spend some time in the kitchen , put on some Christmas carols or Christmas music or whatever it is that you like to listen to , because I know there's also plenty of you out there who probably opt to not listen to any Christmas music and you know , personally I don't mind some Christmas music .

I have a couple of Christmas albums that I love to listen to . Michael Buble and Diana Krall happen to be a couple of them , both Canadian artists that put out fantastic vibey Christmas albums and I really enjoy listening to those . I'm not doing Mariah Carey over here , I'm sorry .

I haven't really listened to a lot of it this year , so maybe I'll have to put some of that on myself . Take my own advice , but I do have the Christmas tree up and I'm getting pretty much ready .

I still have a few things to do and I have made quite a few DIY gifts already this year , so I'm not as organized as having things done by mid-November , but I'm not also completely unorganized either . So this is to help you and to help me as well . But why DIY gifts ?

Well , personally , I think you add that personal touch and customization when you're making a gift yourself and , like I already mentioned , people really appreciate the thoughtfulness yourself and , like I already mentioned , people really appreciate the thoughtfulness .

They can also be budget friendly while also being meaningful , and you know finances are tight for a lot of folks this time of year and increasingly , all times of year .

So why not do yourself a favor and find a way to have that meaning and impact without breaking the bank , because Christmas the holidays is not supposed to be about stressing out and going into debt for Christmas . I'm kind of over that , over consumerism , over consumption that we seem to get pushed more and more every year .

I do recall earlier this year , halloween was over , it was November 1st and I opened up a social platform I think it was TikTok on November 1st , and I was served my first Christmas ad .

It's too soon , it's too soon , but there was this real focus on buying stuff that people don't need and a way to get around that is DIY gifts , and it's also a great way to share your cannabis knowledge and creativity as well with loved ones who might not otherwise ask questions or use cannabis in this way , and I do love that .

If you have folks in your family that are , or friends circle as well , that are not cannabis consumers , you can still gift them topicals , and topicals are such a beautiful entry point into cannabis because they're safe and they are incredibly effective for so many people and they're not going to get high , so it's just one way to be like check out this plant .

I know , you know that I use it , but you don't have to use it the way that I do . You can still benefit from it . Diy cannabis . Gifts are impactful in a lot of different ways . All right , so let's get into it , shall we ?

First of all , we're going to start out with our sweet and savory treats , because a lot of people love to get tasty treats and if they're infused it makes them even better . Let's be honest .

I mean , getting a box of chocolates is nice , although sometimes I may curse a person , because the last thing I need is more chocolate or more sweets that I know I'm going to eat and then I'm going to have to exercise even harder later to work it off .

But if it's infused now , now you're speaking my love language , because , one , I love an edible tie and , two , I can't eat the whole box if they're infused , because we all know what will happen if you do that . So a sweet or savory treat that's infused chef's kiss .

Now , the first one I'm going to start out with I did this episode recently was an infused chocolate bark . The one that I did for the Bite Me episode a few weeks ago was a chocolate citrus nut bark , but of course you can tailor nut bark to your audience if you're not keen on .

On the citrus , the citrus was a really nice twist , but it's perfect for the sweet tooths and when you cut it up into the nice shapes , it really it really looks like a sophisticated gift or sophisticated treat , and it's really easy to make as well .

So it's not going to be something you're going to have to spend tons of time on in the kitchen to make an impressive looking gift . The next one I'm going to recommend is infused caramels or fudge . Now , I've made both of these more than once .

I have made probably three or four pans of fudge already this holiday season , and I have none left to gift at the moment . So I'm going to have to make another four pans of fudge already this holiday season , and I have none left to gift at the moment , so I'm gonna have to make another pan . But fortunately , fudge is very easy as well .

Definitely falls into the category of of simplicity , along with the chocolate bark , and of course , you make a whole tray of it and you cut it up into little pieces . It's a lovely gift and you can also modify your recipes to suit suit you and your tastes or the taste of whoever it is that you're gifting it to . Now . Caramels are also a lovely gift .

They do require more hands-on time , so they're not as fast , but if you have somebody that you really care about and you have the time ,

then it's impressive visually because each of the caramels are wrapped in a little piece of parchment paper that you've cut out to look like the ones that you might buy at the store . Of course they don't look like the ones that you buy at the store . They definitely look DIY At least they do when I make them .

I am no Martha Stewart , but they still look great . And when you put them in a nice festive container they have that wow factor . And I've had people try the caramels . I haven't made them in a while . I really should revisit them because they also do freeze well and usually the batch makes quite a few caramels .

You're not just making a handful , you're making a number of them and I've had people request caramels because they are so good and they make a great treat . Now , of course , if you are gifting to people who are not really into the sweets , what about those folks ? Well , this is where I think your spiced nuts really comes into play .

I did a sweet and spicy nut mix before for this episode , for this , for Bite Me , the Show about edibles and you can put that in a nice little jar , again very simple to make . These are all ideas that are relatively simple to make because , of course , when we're a week out , you don't have a ton of time and I know you folks are all busy anyway .

So , even if it wasn't the holidays , you're all busy , you're working and you're you're playing and doing things . So , uh , the spice , the uh , the uh , the roasted nuts is another nice way to give the gift of edibles . Now , of course , you could also infuse a favorite hot sauce or barbecue sauce to somebody who's into that kind of thing .

That would make a really nice gift as well , so somebody who's looking more towards the savory end of things . So don't forget about infusing sauces and hot hot sauces , because that can make a fantastic gift too . And finally , I would be remiss if I didn't mention eggnog and hot chocolate .

Now , these might not necessarily be gifts , although what you could do with the hot chocolate is prepare a jar with all the ingredients and then include a little vial of the infusion that you would add into it to make it an infused hot chocolate . That could be kind of fun to do .

But if you're having company over for any kind of festive celebrations , then hot chocolate is nice , but I love , love , love . I don't know if I can express to you how much I love eggnog , and I don't buy the store-bought stuff . It's not quite the same .

I figure , if I'm going to enjoy all that fat and sugar combined together , I might as well make it myself , and it's pretty easy to make . Actually , often I am one of the few people imbibing in it . My dad has partaken with me before , so I have to be mindful of how I'm infusing it . Of course , depending on who's going to be enjoying it .

You can spike it or not . I tend to not spike it if I'm infusing it with cannabis . But you could always make two batches and spike one with the booze and spike one with the cannabis and see who wakes up at the hangover the next day , although you'd have to drink an awful lot of eggnog for that to happen .

So you know , tread lightly , of course , but I love eggnog . There's just the combination of all those flavors with the spice . That's just so good . But you know , I drink it pretty much like two days out of the year and then that's it . I mean , I don't buy it .

Like I said , I already don't buy it , but I'm not making jugs of eggnog before Christmas , like I am fudge . So there's that . Now , if you're looking for other ideas , don't discount the idea of pantry staples .

You could gift honey or maple syrup infused Beautiful , perfect for people who like tea or who are using honey or syrup on a regular basis in their diet . Tea just comes to mind because that's a lovely way to use honey or syrup and of course , you can just put it in a nice jar . But that makes a lovely gift . Also , what about cannabis infused olive oil ?

A gift of that ? That would be lovely . Or cannabis infused butter . But the olive oil is kind of nice because it doesn't necessarily have to be like refrigerated or anything like that . Nothing necessarily have to infuse or refrigerate the butter , but you probably should . Same goes , you could do a coconut oil as well .

But there's something nice and sophisticated , I think , about the infused olive oil . And you can get a nice , a nice olive oil , infuse it and you could put it back in the same bottle . You just got to make sure you would label that bottle .

But those are two ideas that would make really nice gifts because , as we know , there is some time time involved in making an infusion . You have to decarb that weed . You have to . You have to get the plant material in the first place , then you have to decarb it , then you have to infuse it and then strain it and then bottle it .

But it can be used in so many ways . And , of course , why not ? If you're going to go the route of an infused olive oil , you could consider pairing it with a small loaf of homemade bread or some nice buns or something like that , and maybe a holiday recipe card . So it gives them some ideas of how to use that olive oil once they have it .

So it gives them some ideas of how to use that olive oil once they have it . Next , like I mentioned at the top of this episode , body . This is a wonderful way to introduce them to how fantastic cannabis can be . So why not think about making an infused bath salt or soak ? I've done that before for the show .

I believe I've also done bath bombs , but if you're running short on time , you need , do need to get molds for the bath bombs , and you can find them pretty easily , probably like a craft supply store or Amazon , of course , but you're running out of time , I'm going to say so the bath salts , actually , if you put them in the right container , can look just as

pretty and impressive as a bath bomb , and then people can use how much , however much they want to use , to use , and you can customize it . Of course you could customize the bath bombs as well , but with your favorite essential oils , and that's a really lovely gift .

But I would say , when it comes to the bath bombs of bath salts , the bath salts are probably going to be better . That's what I would suggest for that . Go with the salts . Now , of course , you can also make a cannabis infused body butter or salve . Those are one of the body butter . I make a body butter all the time .

I use it pretty much year round , but it is a godsend in the wintertime because my skin gets so dry and I'm sure that's the same for many of many of you out there , especially if you're in those cold climates that your skin can just dry out and you feel like you're a crocodile or something like that .

The body butter is rich and it's emollient , but the one that I make , which I will link to in the show notes , does not sort of soak into the skin too well . It does sit for a while and some people like that feeling and other people don't .

One way that I love using it is I will , I will put it on my feet and then put my socks on and my feet have never . I've been doing that a lot lately and my feet have never been softer . And it's so nice and you just don't worry as much about how it doesn't soak in as fast when it's on your feet . But I love doing that . And a salve ?

I do have one , a pain-relieving salve that a listener sent to me quite some time ago that I did an episode around and that's just a very simple pain relief salve that you can put in a nice little tin and give to somebody that you care about that you know might be suffering from some arthritis or other kinds of aches and pains , and that's another lovely way

to show someone that you care . And introduce them to cannabis as well , if they're not regular cannabis consumers .

If you don't think that the body butter , if you think that that might be a little bit too thick for someone , a body oil or massage oil is also a wonderful gift . I use the body oils all the time .

I've been using like a face oil on my face , but the body oil is great for when you do want something to sort of soak into your skin faster but you want to really fight that dry winter skin . And of course , you can create scent combinations depending on what essential oils you have or can pick up , and that makes a really nice gift as well .

You can also , if you want , to create sort of home spa gift sets . You can have your infused products like a body butter or a body oil or your salts , and then maybe you go to the store and you get a bar of soap and a loofah or something like that , just to make it all come together .

Maybe you're going to throw in some of your fudge or your spiced nuts or whatever it is . But creating combinations is also a great way to sort of put some of these together in an attractive package for somebody that really deserves it this year .

And you know , baskets , gift boxes , reusable bags there's a lot of different ways that you could sort of put those together to make it look really nice . Finally , how are you going to present and package all of these ? Well , ideally if you can use eco-friendly or festive packaging Now , that's getting easier these days to do .

I went to the dollar store the other day to get some cardboard boxes . They had festive ones , they had plain ones that were for other times of the year , I guess , and festive can mean very Christmassy , with like Santa Claus on it or something .

But there's plenty of options too that are more wintry , which I sometimes like to go for instead of the overt Christmas stuff . And the dollar store also carried a lot of glass jars , and some of them were like just really nice glass jars with a bamboo lid and like a rubber stop . So those are nice options as well .

But there's all kinds of things you can just pick up the dollar store for just a little bit of money and it can really take your your , your topical , your body care product or your edible and make it look wow . For not a lot of money you can get pretty creative with that kind of stuff . The other thing I would mention is personalized labels .

That's another way to make your edibles or your body care products really stand out , and you can go to an office supply store and pick up blank labels and then design something online that you can print , and it just adds that little professional touch .

And why not consider also including recipe cards or how-to notes along with the products that you're gifting , because that way people will receive them and they'll know how to use them if they're unfamiliar or if they're new to edibles , because some they might not know that when you apply a topical it can sometimes take up to 20 minutes for that topical to really

start to do its magic .

A card that would include a little bit of that information would really help , and sometimes it's nice to you know , just talk about the fact that you made this and maybe you grew the weed or or whatever the case might be , and like show that farm to table kind of journey or or just personalize it to the person who's receiving the gift .

And this is also important as well If you're going to be including edibles gifts with people where you're maybe unsure of their tolerance as well . So do be sure that you're doing the math on anything that you're gifting .

I can't stress that enough , and I of course have a calculator over at bite me podcast that's free to use and you can figure out the potency of whatever it is that you're making with a reasonable amount of accuracy . I mean , you do have to consider if you don't know the potency of your cannabis your starting material is going to .

You might be guessing a little bit , but it gives people at least a benchmark of where they're at and you can say well , if this thing is 20 milligrams per piece of fudge , let's say , then you could include enough fudge so that , if they want , they can cut that piece into up to four pieces and then they can go from there and then you know work from there .

I like to do stuff like that , because receiving edibles blind , without any kind of idea how strong they are , just doesn't work . And experienced cannabis users , depending on your tolerance , I mean , you might be like , oh , that's fine , because you have a high tolerance , you know that somebody might gift you something .

You'd be like , yeah , it's probably not strong enough . I myself don't fall into that category . I have a higher tolerance than some people . I'm about a 20 to 30 milligram kind of gal . But that 20 or 30 milligrams for somebody else might cripple somebody . And of course I know people who could eat 100 milligrams and barely be affected by it .

So don't forget the tolerances very widely and include as much information as you can in a nice way , like including the note and of course , if you're also so inclined , including a recipe card if you're going the route of pantry items , a recipe card or something to that effect can be something nice to include with your gift as well .

Don't forget to label everything properly . Just because you're doing homemade labels doesn't mean that it can't look attractive . But when I say label , I'm not just saying , oh here's , you know , margaret's body butter , a label like that , but make sure you have somewhere that it's clearly infused and how much is in it .

Now , it's not really so concerning when it comes to the topicals , of course , because you can't get high from topicals , but if you're doing anything that they're going to be eating , you have to include that um potency with whatever it is that you're gifting , um , and you need to be mindful of your recipient's preferences and tolerance levels , and if you're unsure ,

this is why that becomes even more important .

The last thing I want to mention and this isn't necessarily a DIY , but as a book lover , I love gifting books , and there are several people that have put out books this year that I think are worth sharing , and if this is something that you're interested in , you might be able to pick them up at your local bookstore . That's where I always check first .

Then books are also always a wonderful gift as well , and if you know somebody that's really into making edibles , a cannabis cookbook can be a wonderful way to give them some inspiration . Besides , of course , recommending bite me the show about edibles , but let me recommend ann alchin's book butter and flour and stoned .

I'd also like to recommend amanda breeze's book that she put out uh , I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head is escaping me . I'm Amanda , but she did a book on making topicals and that's a gift that can keep on giving as well , and I made the lotion bars from her book and they are fantastic .

I'll be gifting a number of those to friends and family this year as well , but I use it every day on my back . It's just infused cacao butter with some other ingredients and it's really soft , and I rub it on my back in the morning and I rub it on my at night and also whenever else I need a little relief and it it's magical .

So I would recommend that book also .

Jackie McGaskill she was also a guest on the show earlier this year , not that long ago , and she recently came out with a book called chill the wine lovers introduction to cannabis , and that is a book , obviously for wine drinkers who are new to cannabis , and it really shows the parallels between cannabis and wine , and she does that in such an approachable way .

So if you have any people that are curious about cannabis , or maybe they're still harboring some of that stigma or some of that propaganda that we all many of us grew up with depending on aging myself right here , dating myself because I did grow up with some of that propaganda and so if you have wine lovers in your life that are curious or maybe they're

holding some of that stigma , this can be a really great approachable book to give them , just to get them thinking about it , maybe trying some things out for themselves , like a nice topical . So those are some books that I recommend . There are so many wonderful cannabis cookbooks out there .

I may create an Amazon list and just list some of the ones that I have on my shelf , because I have a number of them now and I do like to collect them , but I also like to have ones that are unique .

It's really easy to just end up with a shelf full of all kind of the same book , but I think there's some wonderful authors , many of whom have been guests on this show as well . So that's not exactly DIY , but you are supporting other fellow cannabis creators out there that are doing some cool stuff in the world . So thank you for listening in .

I hope this gives you a little bit of inspiration as we get closer to the holiday season , and I hope you're looking forward to some downtime with your friends and family . But take this inspiration , run with it . Tag me in anything that you create online . I would love to see it . And until next week , my friends , I am your host , margaret . Stay high .