If you’re still searching for the perfect new addition to this year’s holiday tree, it’s time to give up the hunt for the elusive Perfect Ornament and build your own. To get started, check out The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book: 15 Designs to Spread Holiday Cheer by Chris McVeigh. The colorful, hardcover how-to features 15 easy-to-build designs to get you into the swing of crafting LEGO ornaments. Because LEGO bricks aren’t just for building houses and vehicles—they can be decorative too. 

McVeigh has crammed this seasonal book with plenty of festive ornaments, like a poinsettia, snowflake, wreath, present, Christmas tree, gingerbread house, and more. There’s even year-round designs like a lantern, arcade, computer, camera, and cheeseburger. Each tutorial provides step-by-step instructions with photos and diagrams to help.

The guide is a great first step to starting your ornament-making career, but if the LEGO Ideas forum has taught us anything, it that it probably won’t take long for you to start building your own original designs. 

If anyone needs a great holiday gift, it’s a broke college student. Give them something they’ll love (and use). May we suggest one of these?

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1. KEURIG® K55 COFFEE MAKER; $99

College kids may not have time between classes to make—or drink—a full pot of coffee, making them perfect candidates for single-serve pod machines. This Keurig machine makes anywhere from 6 to 10 ounces. Plus, it’s compact for easy dorm storage, and comes in several different colors.

Find It: Amazon

2. BANDO “AFTER THIS WE’RE GETTING PIZZA” WORKOUT BAG; $28

Just because exercise is healthy doesn’t mean it’s always fun. Help your reluctant student get to the gym with this cheeky bag, which is sure to help him or her make like-minded friends—who might know where a student group will be giving out free pizza that night.

Find It: Amazon

3. MOLESKINE SMART WRITING SET; $199

Reviewing has never been easier with Moleskine’s smart pen set, a super portable digital tool that converts hand-written notes into digital files in real-time, allowing drafts to be emailed or uploaded to a LiveScribe account with the push of a button. The smartphone app will even convert handwriting into digital text, though it doesn’t always recognize messier script.

Find It: Moleskine

4. UBER GIFT CARD; $25 AND UP

Joy ride: Most students can get from place to place on campus just fine, but they could probably use extra help hitting the town. Make sure they get on route safely with Uber gift cards. 

Find It: Amazon

5. BEYONCILS; $18

It’s hard not to be inspired by the wisdom of Beyoncé, and these nine handmade pencils are sure to remind the writer to be as confident as Queen Bey. They’re handmade and feature lyrics like “fresher than you,” “flawless,” and “I woke up like this.” For every set sold, LZPENCILS donates nine pencils—minus the lyrics—to a school in need.

Find It: Etsy

6. ROKU PREMIERE +; $95

It’s rare to find a college student these days who has a cable subscription, so you might as well give them the gift of streaming. Roku’s Premiere+ streams smoothly in high definition and supports most major services like Netflix and Hulu. The enhanced remote is compatible with headphones, so no roommates need be disturbed.

Find It: Amazon

7. MOPHIE POWERSTATION MINI; $15

Help your favorite student keep smartphones charged during a full day of classes with Mophie’s ultra-fast portable charger. The gadget has the capacity to charge a cell phone about twice. Perhaps they’ll even use that extra battery power to call home.

Find It: Amazon

8. STATE BAGS KANE BACKPACK; $60

Students can carry their books in style and feel good about it. For every backpack sold, STATE Bags gives one to a child in need. And it’s machine washable, just in case it ever ends up at a frat party.

Find It: Amazon

9. DART; $99

Students can ditch heavy laptop chargers for Dart, a portable little device that is four times smaller than the standard laptop charger and has a USB port to charge tablets. It can charge a laptop and any USB device at the same time, too. And the slick, colorful charger makes it easy to pick it out from a crowd of identical computer cords.

Find It: Amazon

10. BRIK BOOKS BUILD-ON MACBOOK COVER; $60

Let your student stand out in the lecture hall—and display their 8-bit fandom—with these customizable laptop covers. They’re compatible with brick-based systems like LEGO and Mega Bloks, making them perfect to build tributes to any pixelated character. There are choices that fit a variety of Macbook Pro models, but sadly, it doesn’t come with any of the LEGOs they’ll need to customize, so you might want to throw those in the gift box, too.

Find It: Think Geek

11. FUJIFILM INSTAX SHARE SP-2 SMART PHONE PRINTER; $190

Most college memories in this day and age are stored in smartphones, not photo albums. But the instaxSHARE lets anyone print high-resolution photos straight from a phone. The printed photos make for perfect dorm room decoration.

Find It: Amazon

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A Brief History of Closed Captioning. It all started with Julia Child.

(Banner image courtesy of iStock)