A Heart Act to Follow

Whether or not you are celebrating Valentine’s Day with a sweetie, there is some gift-giving gold to be found amongst the pink and red –- especially if you are patient and forward-thinking. If you think outside of the (heart-shaped) box, you'll find lots of fun ways to buy now, give later.

Wrapping paper or gift bags with heart / love designs can be a festive way to package gifts for engagement parties, wedding showers, Sweet Sixteen events and anniversary celebrations any time of year.

Use gift wrap or gift items with Cupid designs for baby showers, Mother’s Day or weddings.

Heart-shaped candy boxes are a lovely way to present romantic gifts – especially if they contain something besides assorted chocolates and are given any time after February. Buy one on sale after February 14 and get rid of the candy (By the way, there are ways to do this that don't involve eating it yourself. Display it on a pretty plate and put it in the staff lounge someplace where people work hard, for example.). Then save the box and wait a while to fill it with something special for someone you love. Bonus points if you personalize the box somehow: a collage of photos? Words spelling out how you really feel? Inside jokes? Hints about the contents of the box?

A simple heart-shaped plate or bowl can be used later on to present small tokens of appreciation for teachers, volunteers, employees, retirees…or save it for a surprise breakfast in bed for someone a little closer.

You never know when you will encounter someone who might appreciate a surprise heart-shaped treat of pancakes or a PB&J sandwich or homemade cookies out of season. In the year to come, you might know someone who is fighting an illness, or a kid who survived a tough test, a friend who is feeling a little sad or one who did something remarkably generous. Stock up now on the tools you'll need to surprise the people you care about with a lovely, loving treat later.

Love is forever -- not just for Valentine’s Day!

In Praise of Theme Gifts

A friend of mine put together a wonderful theme gift for her adult daughter this Christmas: a soup-making kit with a nice soup pot, a soup recipe book and some soup ingredients, all bundled in a sturdy, reusable shopping bag with -- best of all -- a gift certificate for one-on-one soup-making lessons with Mom.

Without spending a lot of money, she has created a gift that is practical, personal, clever, experiential, memorable and fun...the kind of gift her daughter will talk about when people ask her, "so what did you get...?"

Building a fun theme gift isn't that hard, really -- you just have to find a good theme and build on it. For example:

• For the new motorcycle owner: nice leather gloves... along with a do-rag, fake pierced earring and rub-on tattoos.
  
  
• For someone about to take an adventurous vacation: a travel book, a little flag from their destination and a CD of indigenous music. Use a map of their trip route as gift wrap. If they are going to a place where they don't speak the language, make a few funny flashcards ("I don't speak ______," "Where is the bathroom?" "Beer, please." etc.).
  
  
• For the poker player: a shirt from a casino, cards, poker chips and ridiculous dark glasses, packaged together in an emptied Lucky Charms cereal box.
  
  
• For your relative's new baby: a custom tee for the next family reunion, plus baby sunscreen, toddler-size sunglasses and a tiny swimsuit -- all tucked in a colorful beach pail.
  
  
• For the gardening enthusiast: a green thumb (cut the thumb off a glove, color it with a green marker, and label it somehow), a gardening tool, a gardening book or packets of seeds, and maybe a bottle of Advil. Plop the goodies in a terra cotta pot or watering can and wrap it in plain paper stamped with green thumbprints.
  
  
• For the (adult) birthday girl, try a princess theme: a tiara, a feather boa, chocolates and a bottle of bubble bath or Champagne.
  

See where I am going with this? With a theme that fits your giftee (plus a little creativity), you can build upon a mild-mannered gift to create something quite memorable.

Three words of advice on theme gifts:

1. Let at least one piece of the gift be something of value (e.g., nice leather gloves in the first example above).
   
   
2. Avoid themed "add-ons" that are too expensive (bad for you) or too big or junky (bad for the recipient). Our goal is to avoid giving gifts that end up in the landfill, right?
   
   
3. Don't automatically package your theme gift in a basket (unless your giftee really loves baskets). Let the gift container serve a purpose or fit the theme too!

Have you given or received a great theme gift lately? Add your stories to the SB Gift Girl gift list for future posts! Please share your info via comment below or send an e-mail to sbgiftgirl@gmail.com.

Happy gifting!
~

Special Delivery

A little colorful duct tape makes it even more exciting to receive that box full of gifts delivered by UPS. (Probably makes it more fun to deliver too!)

Wrapping Things Up

In Japan, “tsusumi” is a philosophy wherein the wrapping is considered a part of the gift itself; both are chosen and implemented with thought, care and consideration.

This is not to dis the convenience of a colorful gift bag with tissue paper, but there's still time to put a little thought and ingenuity into your own tsutsumi for this year's holiday gifting.

Here are some ideas for creative gift-wrapping:

• Enlarge a meaningful old photo and use it as gift wrap -- extra great if the photo ties in with the gift inside somehow. I used a picture of my dad and brother in classic 70s tennis togs to wrap a funny book on fatherhood... the book was soon forgotten, but the wrapping paper was definitely memorable.
  
  
• Enlarge the gift recipient's signature or favorite doodle...trace it with glue and add glitter. Dazzling!
  
  
• If you have photo-editing software and photos of your giftee on your computer, you can have fun using creative filters and wild effects on digital photos, and use the printed output to wrap a gift.
  
  
• Old maps are big pieces of paper that make perfect gift wrap -- especially if the map somehow ties in with the gift recipient or the contents of the package.
  
  
• Go green: expired calendars, blueprints, posters, shopping bags, newspaper pages (Sports section for the sports guy!) and the Sunday comics can also find a second life as wrapping paper.
  
  
• Magazine pages with beautiful (or funny) ads can make lovely gift wrap for small packages.
  
  
• If you have little kids, you can turn a fun rainy-afternoon activity into wrapping paper production session. Tape a long roll of kraft brown or white paper on the kitchen floor and put 'em to work with finger paints, holiday-colored markers, or sponge-stamps and tempra paint. Once it's dried you'll have a nice roll of custom gift wrap (which the kids will be proud to see under the tree).
  
  
• Think outside of the box -- really! There are lots of clever ways to package your gift besides boxes: new paint cans (available at hardware stores), reusable shopping bags (colorful Chico bags are perfect), takeout containers, mailing tubes, jars...