You know, I've seen a lot of things in this thread that aren't jigs or fixtures or tools for machining. but despite that not many which would qualify as the originally poster said of being interesting/useful to "normal people".
I think there was a thread awhile back about gift ideas which had some good ones. Darts, pens, hairpins, chess/checker pieces can all be made with the lathe. For the mill maybe, I dunno, phone cases, stash boxes, dice. We got the puzzles covered though.
One of the first projects I did for someone else was a knurled handle for a safety razor, out of 3/4" stainless. A friend was displeased with how delicate and light the handle on his semi-expensive razor was.