Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas
It’s that time of year again, and Valentine’s Day is back on everyone’s minds. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, you may be looking for a small token of affection for someone who means a lot to you.
I’d like to share a few gift ideas with you for this upcoming Valentine’s Day. I’ll go a bit beyond the roses and chocolates that adorn every store, and hopefully one of these concepts appeals to you.
One idea is to buy your loved one an experience rather than a physical gift. Why not book a surprise weekend to a quiet getaway?
It doesn’t even have to be somewhere too far away. Ideas like a bed and breakfast or a ski lodge are all ones that may appeal to your companion. If you’re a female shopping for the man in your life, you’d be surprised to know that many men are happy with a simple gadget for the holiday. While it may not seem romantic, it’s something that offers them functional value that they’ll be thrilled to add to their lives.
Look to some of the bigger online retailers for the best electronics sellers, and you’ll see plenty of different possibilities for pretty reasonable prices. This idea isn’t your traditional one, but it’s something that guys love nonetheless.
If you’re a man shopping for the woman in your life, you can always go with a jewelry bracelet. With so many of them out there, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find one.
You may want to add a personal touch to yours, though. There are ones that you can buy with charms, personalized ones where you can inscribe initials or other text, and many more options. These will show a touch of extra effort that goes beyond the generic gifts many typically receive during this time of the year.
Gift Ideas – Beautiful Kitchen Products Are Great Gifts For Weddings, Housewarmings, Or Any Occasion
It feels great to give people gifts they love – an aptly chosen gift is a delight to the person giving as well as the one receiving. A gift of high-quality kitchen products is usually well-received, especially one that is both beautiful and functional, and designed to last a lifetime. Such gifts can be enjoyed by the entire family, and even passed along from generation to generation.
Here are some gift ideas that are sure to please:
1. Bamboo
There is a large variety of bamboo items for the kitchen and dining room, from cutting boards to utensils, from serving platters and bowls to pepper and salt grinders. They are handsome additions to anyone’s kitchen: smooth, lightweight, golden-brown wood in sleek designs to go with any decor. Even better, bamboo is much more sustainable than other types of wood; because it grows so fast, it is an environmentally friendly choice.
2. Entertaining Ware
Besides bamboo, you might consider ceramics or glassware in festive designs and gorgeous colours. Gifts like these can be quite versatile: martini glasses double as parfait dishes; a beautiful trifle bowl can be used for layered salads as well as desserts, not to mention decorative centrepieces; and for beverage connoisseurs, an ice bucket and shaker set or a chrome-plated, insulated carafe make classy, high-quality gifts.
3. Collapsible Serving Bowls
For a fun, casual, and eminently useful gift, find a collapsible serving bowl. Such bowls fold down to take up less space in your cupboard, and when folded also create a well for dip and veggies or chips. They come in 2-quart, 4-quart and 8-quart sizes, and include lids for convenient travel or storage.
4. Gourmet Seasonings, Sprinkles, and Oils
Why not give someone you care about the gift of flavour? Make a delicious gift of oil dipping seasonings, sweet sprinkles, herb-infused canola oils, savoury seasoning mixes and rubs, and ready-made sauces. You can find such delectable flavours as Mocha Hazelnut, Caramel, Cinnamon, Parmesan-Garlic, Sun-Dried Tomato Herb, Maple Honey Mustard, Spicy Pineapple-Rum, Citrus and Basil, and Smoky Barbecue…. Isn’t your mouth watering? This is the perfect host gift, teacher gift, thank-you gift, stocking stuffer – you name it! And for the baker on your list, try a treat like Double-Strength Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract – the name says it all. If you think further inspiration will be needed, there are cookbooks to suit all kinds of lifestyles, the perfect complement to your tasty gift.
5. Round-Up from the Heart Trivet
For ten years, the Round-Up from the Heart Campaign has been supporting food banks to help feed the hungry. When you purchase one of their lovely copper-plated, cast iron, heart-patterned trivets, perfect as a decorative accent or a table protector, $2 of your purchase goes to Food Banks Canada or America’s Second Harvest. As part of this charitable initiative, you can also round up the price of your order to the nearest dollar or more – the difference becomes a donation. When we join together, all our little contributions go a long way.
Easy Patchwork Fabric-Covered Gift Box
Patchwork fabric-covered gift boxes are an easy, affordable way to dress up any gift package. They’re also great for storage. Total preparation and assembly time for this project is approximately 2-3 hours, depending on the size of the shoe box.
Materials:
Shoe box, or any other small box with removable lid Fabric scraps Wonder Under or other fusible web* Pinking shears Iron, ironing board Optional – buttons, raffia, etc.
*Fusible web is a fusible interfacing that allows you to bind two fabrics together or fabric to another surface by applying heat. It can be purchased in packages or by the yard wherever interfacing is sold.
Directions:
To assemble the fabric-covered gift box, essentially you are going to be ironing fabric scraps onto a shoe box.
While assembling my box, I found it was easier to iron the fusible web onto the fabric first, and then cut the fabric into the desired shapes. The web reinforced the fabric and the pinking shears cut through the fabric more cleanly.
Choose a piece of fabric and cut a piece of the fusible web to fit. With a warm iron, iron the web to the wrong side of the fabric, following the directions that came with the fusible web. Don’t remove paper backing yet. Next cut the fabric into desired shapes with the pinking shears. Regular sewing shears would work also, but the pinking shears give the fabric an edge that will not unravel as easily.
When cutting your shapes, cut some rectangular, some square, and some triangular. The number and size of each are up to you, but you will find some fit better than others along the edges and in the corners. Long rectangular pieces lay along the top edges better and reduce the number of pieces required to line the top.
Cut pieces out of several coordinating fabrics. After you cut your pieces out, start ironing them to the box. Peel the paper off of the fusible web, lay the fabric with fusible web side down on the box and press with the iron. You may have to go over it a couple of times to get it to stick really well.
I started with the top of the box and worked my way down. Fold a piece of fabric over the top edge of the box. Mine is folded over about an inch. Iron the edge on the inside of the box first. Fold the piece to the outside of the box and press again. Continue overlapping pieces until the box is covered. Cover the lid of the box in the same way, starting with the bottom edge.
When you’re done look for small spots you missed, adding fabric pieces until the entire surface is covered. You can’t make any mistakes…it’s supposed to look like a Patchwork Quilts.
Look over the box for spots where the edges of the fabric are coming up and gently run the iron over them. Sometimes it will take a couple of times to get all the edges to lay down. If you later find a stubborn spot that just doesn’t want to stick, just dab a little glue on it and press down until it takes hold.
You can embellish your box with buttons, raffia bows, etc. I used a hot glue gun to glue a corrugated cardboard heart to the top, and then I glued a raffia bow to the heart.
Add some tissue paper to the inside of the box, and it’s ready to add a gift. I placed in mine a small stack of handmade cards tied together with a piece of raffia tied into a bow. The box was a gift to a friend who likes to write pen pal letters.
Gourmet Food Gift Baskets
Gourmet gift baskets must come as a real surprise to someone who loves to eat. Anyone who passionately loves food is somewhat of a fascist when it comes to eating the best that is available. So, perhaps a gift unsurpassed for a gourmand is a scrumptious basket full of gourmet delights. Here are some suggestions and examples of gourmet gift baskets:
For those enthusiastic about Italian food, a bona fide Tuscan feast is an experience that can be singled out as one in a million. A sprinkling of roasted garlic vinaigrette for that o-so-crunchy Italian salad (made with celery, bell pepper, mushroom, black olives, onion, garlic and oregano) is an enticing appetizer. Follow that with some Fettuccini pasta (pasta with three flavors – egg, spinach and tomato-basil) and top of the line tomato and sweet basil sauce with Italian vegetables thrown in for good measure and you will be setting the pace for an elegant meal. The entire experience can come to a mouth-watering close with home-baked biscotti.
Another favorite is the gourmet snack basket with cocktail bites, raspberry-honey-mustard pretzels, cheese shortbread, maple sugar nut mix, chocolate almond cookies, cheese straws and potato chip cookies. This appetizing array of snacks will tantalize the taste buds and leave anybody craving for more.
A gift collection of teas is another gourmet favorite among tea lovers food lover. Try a collection of teas and chai that come with cookies and teacakes. This collection, fit for royalty, will contain English Breakfast, Earl Grey, spiced chai, vanilla chai, ginger bread tea, fruit-flavored iced teas with a bouquet of teacakes and cookies.
Ordering gourmet gift baskets is always easy, but creating your own custom-made basket is special and lots of fun.
Eco Friendly Products As Corporate Gifts
Prompted by the alerts sent out by leading organizations championing the cause of environment conservation, an increasing number of people have realized that they have to take adequate steps to protect nature. This awareness can also be found at corporate level with several business organizations taking a keen interest on adopting green practices to contribute favorably to this cause. Apart from going green in manufacturing and production, a number of organizations are also paying a lot of attention on implementing a uniform green policy throughout the organization. The objective is to include green strategies in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
Green strategies have worked favorably at the marketing level as well. A growing number of marketers are seeing great potential in going green for all kinds of marketing initiatives. This is because green marketing has become the buzzword in present times and every firm is keen on staying abreast with this emerging trend. Moreover, it has been found green marketing initiatives provide better opportunities when it comes to boosting corporate brand image and promote new products. Fortunately, there are a number of ways in which green marketing initiatives can be provided an impetus. Of these, corporate gift items are definitely a preferred choice owing to the range of options and the affordability factor.
It has become quite common for organizations to invest in eco friendly gift items that can be presented to the employees as well as the clients. Some of the most popular environment friendly gift items at corporate level are eco friendly dinnerware, bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs and key chains. Prices of these products vary to a large extent. Most suppliers are willing to offer attractive discounts on bulk purchases. Therefore, a number of organizations prefer placing order in bulk. This helps them to buy the eco friendly at considerably low price points.