If ever there has been a year to give a homemade holiday gift, this is it. The economy's in the dumps and budgets are tight. Gift-givers have to be more creative than ever if they want to delight their friends and family with something unusual.

Meanwhile, business is booming in the world of homemade crafts. Not only has scrapbooking launched an industry of its own, but the notion of do-it-yourself has produced thousands of new products, services, classes, and ideas that now jostle for space on the Web and in stores.

With all these choices, the question remains: What to give? Here are some ideas:

• Aprons are big this year, according to Kathy Rogers of Oak Park, Calif. These kitchen cover-ups are useful and they're easy to sew, even for novices.

"People are having fun with it; I've seen a lot of aprons with retro patterns," said Rogers, a fiber artist and teacher who is president of the California Art Education Association. "That seriously seems to be a very hot item."

• If you like to give your gifts early, try a wreath. Jenny Bosben, a Madison, Wis., art teacher, estimates she spends about $3 per wreath for a metal frame and some craft wire. Then she heads into her backyard to chop off a few pieces of Arbor Vitae, an evergreen shrub. If you don't have access to evergreens, boughs are available to buy at Christmas time.

Just wrap the boughs securely onto the frame with the wire, overlapping so the stems don't show.

"You can add whatever you want: holly berries, dried flowers from the backyard," said Bosben. "It's something people really enjoy because it's real and it smells good."

• If you're making gifts with children, try baked goods, said Laurie Nagus, who runs playgroups at the Madison Waldorf School in Madison, Wis.

Nagus likes to give homemade fudge as a gift. She also makes shortbread every year for neighbors and friends. "We give it with a candle and a tiny bottle of wine," she said.