Men are notoriously hard to shop for. If you’re looking for a perfect men’s birthday gift, holiday gift or Father’s Day gift, why not try making this fun DIY gift basket? This men’s gift basket is easy to assemble and is fully customizable. It’s full of things that guys will actually like using, and it can be packaged in a reusable tote that’s part of the gift. Follow along as we make a men’s gift basket that any guy would be thrilled to receive!
What to Put in a Men’s Gift Basket
The best part about making a gift basket is that you can include anything you want! For this tutorial, we’ll be using 6 of our men’s DIY recipes. If you want to make a gift basket that looks just like ours, you’ll want to start by making these recipes. We’ve included estimations of how long each project takes to complete, including cleanup:
- Beard Oil Recipe (estimated time: 10 minutes total)
- Scrubby Loofah Powder Soap (estimated time: 30 minutes + 2-4 hours cooling time)
- Shea Butter Lip Balm (estimated time: 20 minutes + 30 minutes cooling time)
- Men’s Shaving Soap * (estimated time: 20 minutes + 2-4 hours cooling time)
- DIY Cologne Recipe (estimated time: 10 minutes total)
- Manly Bath Salt Recipe (estimated time: 20 minutes + overnight drying time)
* For this gift basket, we thought it looked best to melt the soap and pour it directly into a shaving mug. You can fit approximately half of the recipe (3 bars-worth) into a standard-sized shaving mug. The mug paired with a shaving brush makes a great gift. You can pour the remaining soap into the mold as instructed in the recipe, then include these bars of soap as refills.
All the hands-on work for these projects can be completed in a single afternoon. If you’re making a last-minute gift basket, allow enough time for the items to cool/dry and make sure you have an hour or so to package and arrange the items.
Depending on the size of the basket you use, you may need to add other items to help fill it out. Accessories such as a mesh shower loofah, a luxury towel or bath robe, a book or magazine, or socks can make your gift basket even better. If there is still extra space in your basket, you might also need filler materials such as crinkle paper to help arrange your items neatly.
Men’s Gift Basket Theme Ideas
Our basket is full of self-care gifts for men, but you can pick any theme you want to display the items. By choosing a reusable box, hat or other accessory to hold your items, the package becomes part of the gift itself! Here are a few fun ideas for men’s gift baskets:
- Use a tool box or canvas tool tote for a guy who likes woodworking or working on cars.
- Use a baseball cap from his favorite team.
- Use a cowboy hat for a western theme (see picture below!)
- Use a tackle box for a guy who likes fishing.
- Use a shower caddy as a going-away gift for college.
This cowboy hat gift basket holds fewer items. It's a great option if you only want to make a few of the projects, or are running short on time!
If your basket/container has lots of pockets or compartments, you might want to get additional gifts to fill these. Candy or other small accessories would work well.
To make your manly gift basket look cohesive, you can also choose a color scheme for all of your items. If you made our men’s recipes listed above, you’ll notice that most of them are natural, neutral colors that will go well with anything. That means you can pick whichever packaging materials and accessories you think will go well together.
Supplies for Making a Men’s Gift Basket
If you want to make a gift basket that looks just like ours in the picture, you’ll need these supplies and items:
- A canvas tool tote (ours measures 12” long x 9” wide x 8” tall)
- A large bath towel or a bath robe.
- 2 pairs of socks.
- A mesh shower loofah.
- A shaving brush and mug.
- A book or magazine.
- A pumice stone/nail brush scrubber tool.
- 1 jar of Manly Bath Salts.
- 1 bottle of Men’s Cologne.
- 1 bottle of Men’s Beard Oil.
- 1 bar of Scrubby Loofah Soap.
- 1 tube of Shea Butter Lip Balm.
- 6 bars of Shaving Soap (we poured half the soap from the recipe directly into a shaving mug and let it set up – the other three bars can be poured into the mold and included as refills).
- Crinkle paper for filler.
How to Assemble a Men’s Gift Basket
After making whichever recipes you want to use, choosing a theme and picking out your basket and accessories, it’s time to start assembling your gift basket! Follow these steps to make the ultimate men’s gift basket:
- Use crinkle paper or other similar material to fill the bottom portion or any other parts of the basket that need extra padding/filler (see photo 1 above). If you’re using a caddy with pockets, it helps to put a small amount of filler in the pockets so the gift items stand up better (photo 3).
- Place the larger items at the back of the basket, standing them semi-upright. In our gift basket, we are placing a standard-sized towel at the back of the container to hold the other items in place (photo 2).
- If your box or basket has pockets/compartments, fill these with gifts wherever they fit. We placed the beard oil, cologne, shaving brush and nail brush tool into the front pockets on our gift basket (photo 4). If there are other pockets or compartments on your box, feel free to fill them with other gifts such as books, candy, magazines etc. (photos 4 & 5).
- Use additional crinkle paper as needed to hold all of the items in place. If adding more items to the main compartment of your box, add more filler material to make the box look more full (photo 7).
- Place the other gifts in the main compartment of the basket, arranging them so that they fan out from one another. We placed the soap, shaving mug, bath salts and lip balm in the main compartment. Place smaller items so that they don’t fall down between the larger items (photo 8).
Love making gift baskets? Check out our Valentine's Day Gift Basket and Mother's Day Gift Basket projects!