Theme time!

End of the semester is almost here, I promise! Then hopefully I'll be blogging along more regularly!

Next gift is one I put together for my sister-in-law. She and my brother do quite a bit of entertaining. They have a great group of friends who are always throwing theme parties and massive dinner parties. I honestly don't know how I even came across this particular item, but I did and thought it was one of the coolest things I'd seen in a long time:

$7.87 at Amazon

This nifty little contraption makes any food instant decoration. Simply use this fun little carver, place a tea light inside, and voila! Adorable ambiance and seasonal themes! Halloween? Perfect for mini pumpkins! Summertime? How about some oranges?

Now, we don't spend massive amounts of money on each other, but I mean...less than $8? I decided this was going to be a combination gift of some sort. I figured she had plenty of actual tea lights, so I got some battery operated ones:

$8.26 at Amazon

And then finally, a nice little thought-provoking book for some daily thoughts.

 $9.99 at Amazon

Sushi please!

My husband and I are sushi junkies. We have one restaurant in our small town that serves sushi and the workers and owners of the establishment know us by name, by face, by phone number and by our dogs (who usually ride along and hang out in the back of the Pathfinder).

"I'd like to place an order to go please."
"Can I get your phone number?"
"704-..."
"Ahhh, Topper! What would you like?"

We literally go in at least once per week, sometimes twice. Needless to say, we rack up pretty quickly on the soy sauce and chopsticks.

My husband likes having his own things in life. That's why I thought I'd died to heaven when I found Everything Chopsticks. Pretty chopsticks, beginner chopsticks, personalized chopsticks and glass chopsticks. And beyond.

After browsing the enormous selection, I settled on a pair of travel chopsticks:

These weren't the cheapest chopsticks on the website (nor were they the most expensive, by a long shot!) but they are simple, appear to be sturdy and come in a nifty little travel case for easy transportation!

They screw in at the middle for easy cleaning and transporting!

Something tells me we'll be having sushi for our day after Christmas dinner :)

Old Skool.

If you remember, last year I came across this Atari set to give my brother for Christmas. It was a huge hit. He is an early 80's baby so he's getting to that age where it's fun for him to go back to his childhood sometimes.

I had actually planned to go completely practical this year, but c'mon. It's Christmas. We all buy practical gifts for ourselves. I kind of enjoy being that person with a reputation when it comes to getting gifts - I keep people on their toes since they never know what's coming.

Anyhoo, this year I searched and searched. I knew I wouldn't top last year, but I was going to try to at least be in the same ballpark.

While perusing through the crazy collection of stuff at Think Geek, I found this gift that is perfect for that playful person who grew up in the 80's:

DONKEY KONG JENGA!
$24.99 at Think Geek



My brother, his wife and their friends all love playing games. I'm pretty sure they don't have Jenga, but even if they did - now there's this extra step of trying to get Mario to the top without getting hit by the barrels!

Kind of hoping he wants to break it out right then and there when we celebrate Christmas...

Cutest things ever.

It's no secret that I love my dogs. We treat them as if they were our actual children (often making us wonder if we will ever treat our future children as well as we treat our dogs!). Last year I really wanted to get ornaments for them - since it was their first Christmas with us.

Well, I never found any that worked. Since they're mutts, it's much harder. There is absolutely no breed that looks even remotely similar to either of our dogs. I didn't want to do a photo ornament and I didn't want to get just a generic one with their names painted on them. I found one place on Etsy that would create custom ornaments but they were $40 each. I love my dogs, but $80 for two ornaments? Sorry, girls. At least you made the Christmas card that year.

So after Christmas I just kept searching. I figured at some point I'd find someone who makes ornaments cheaper. Finally, I found someone on Etsy who would make them for about $16 each. Still a little expensive, but much more reasonable than $40. Plus, her stuff looked so adorable and she seemed so confident that she could capture our two pups. I sent her some pictures, told her I wanted to make sure the ornaments showed Chloe's gigantic ears and Roxy's brindle.

A reference picture:

And the actual ornaments:

I love them! You can find them at Sally's Bits of Clay. You can choose ornament colors and whether or not you want the hats. Total customization.

Warm and Cozy

I know this looks like a totally ridiculous gift, but it's not a prank gift. It's 100% genuine and I am fully confident that it's recipient will use it often.

Amazon/PajamaCity, $45

My brother-in-law's girlfriend is truly still a kid at heart. I got her a pair of rain boots for her birthday in March and let me just tell you - those things get USED!

These pajamas are footed, fleece and even have the drop seat in the back so bathroom use is easily accessible! I also saw some that had hoods with them. There's solid colors, cartoon characters, "sexy" (as sexy as a fully covered set of pajamas could be haha).

But I guarantee that she'll have them on, showcasing them for everyone by the end of the day. No doubt!

Apologies.

School has been absolutely overwhelming lately, but rest assured. My Christmas shopping is nearly complete and I have really out-done myself with some of these gifts this year. I'll be adding new updates as soon as possible. Gifts to look forward to:

- Sushi lovers
- Moped lovers
- 80's lovers
- Garden lovers
- Kids at heart

And gifts that keep on giving...for the recipient AND the donor!

Remember this blog where I said something was in the works? Well, it's time for my little update!

What I had planned was quite possibly the best gift I could have ever planned. Thanks to Gotham Dream Cars, my husband drove 6 exotic cars with me as the passenger! The Ferrari was in the shop (hate when that happens!) but we drove a Porsche, two Lamborghini's, an Aston Martin, Bentley and finally a Mercedes. I really don't know how else to describe it, so I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Just having fun in NYC was enough gift for the both of us, I think! But it was an absolutely amazing experience. It kind of stunk because it rained horribly through most of the morning - flooding conditions, actually. But they gave us a phenomenal deal to come back within a year and try it again.

I HIGHLY recommend Gotham Dream Cars, though. They were ridiculously knowledgeable and super impressive. They have a lead car and a trail car and you just have to stay in between those two. The lead car will radio ahead if they see a cop or something, but they can't help you if you get pulled over. Although, who wouldn't want a speeding ticket in a Lamborghini to take home as an extra souvenir?

It's not cheap - with tax it comes in right under $1,000. BUT, we got a great deal on our hotel, a cheap shuttle in and out of the city and once we were in NYC, we barely spent any money. We just walked around and enjoyed everything together. I'd been budgeting for this since January and regardless of what some people have said, it was worth it to me. We had a great time together, doing something that most people will never do and it made incredible memories for us. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Want to see all of the professional pictures?  Click here!

I was inspired...

I figured, why not. I said in this post that if I could do photo books all day, every day, I'd be a happy girl.

So here's to hoping I can do at least a couple a month or so.

Whatever makes a girl happy, right?

http://www.natalietopper.com/

Open to suggestions!

A morning cup of coffee...

Snapfish did this very clever marketing move - the week of Mother's Day I began to get emails offering me 50% off Father's Day gifts.

Hook, line and sinker.

I started looking through their "qualified" Father's Day items and saw something I thought my dad just might like.

A photo mug!

Brad's grandmother was given one of them for her 80th birthday and I know she's really enjoyed it. My dad is a devoted morning coffee man and while they have a bazillion and one coffee mugs, I have a feeling this will be the one used daily.

You can put up to I believe 16 pictures on a mug and there's a couple of different sizes of mugs, 11oz-17oz. I went with the 15oz coffee mug (the 17oz is a Latte mug). I took pictures of my brother and I as kids, of my mom and dad, and wedding pictures from both of our weddings...and of course the two grandpuppies! I'm probably going to get a small bag of gourmet coffee to put with it. Even though I'm far away, he can have his coffee with his baby girl every morning!

Oh, and by the way. With my 50% off, even with tax and shipping my total came to $15.35. Normally they start at $16.99. Still not bad, but my 50% off was nice :)

Mother's Day, Take 2

I posted earlier about my mother's gift for Mother's Day. Today, my mother-in-law gets the stage.

A few months ago, my in-laws took me, my husband, my brother-in-law and my brother-in-law's girlfriend on a 10 day cruise in the Caribbean. Yes, I know that you all hate me right now. It was fantastic. Just what I needed in the middle of the cold, dreary winter.

After my husband and I got married, I created a photo book of some pictures from our wedding. Not an album, but an actual book. My mother-in-law asked me to just make two copies of it and give one to her (she says she's not creative enough to put one together). She loved the book and loved having something to show people when they asked for wedding pictures.

I told her after the cruise that I needed her pictures so I could put together a book of pictures from the cruise. But after she gave me her cd's, I told her I was busy with school so I would work on the book between spring and summer semesters. She hasn't asked about it yet - and my semester ends Tuesday.

Well, I went ahead and put together a book of pictures from the cruise. Between her two cd's worth and my nearly 1,000 pictures - I had a ton of great pictures to choose from.

 The front of the book says Cruising Through the Caribbean 2011 and a list of all the countries we visited. I should have taken a picture of it, but the first page shows the dates, the towns and countries that we visited. The second page is a map I created through the Apple software that highlights the countries we visited. That's my favorite part of this book. I was proud of that little attribute :) It also has the little paper cover around it - but the picture on the front of the cover is also on the actual front cover of the book. So you can choose to have the cover or not.

I tried to hold myself to 2-4 pages of pictures per country. It was hard, because there were SO many gorgeous pictures to choose from. This was the first time I used Apple and I'm very pleased with the quality of the book. I use iPhotos anyway, so it was great to be able to just drag my pictures into my book. I used Mpix for my wedding book, but since then they've changed their system and to do the more advanced features that I like to do - they simply won't let me. If I want anything beyond their simple version, I had to employ one of THEIR graphic designers to do it for me. Apple takes a little more time to figure out, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

That's my (hopefully) future sister-in-law and me with the captain of the ship. He was quite the hottie and quite young. We considered going after him butttttt settled for a picture.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with Apple's quality. The first and last pages seem to be a linen material and the pictures came out crisp and clear. It cost me $56 for this book and 18 pages (it doesn't sound like a lot, but to see it in person, it looks like a normal coffee table book.

There are tons of other sites you can do for cheaper - Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc. And if you're not the creative type, you can just upload your pictures and let them arrange the pictures for you.

It's an absolutely fantastic gift for people though. I know she's going to be excited to get it. And I had a blast doing it. If I could just make photo books for people all day long for a living - I would be in heaven :)

Just a note...

Great gifts come from personalization. I’m not talking about finger painting someone’s name on a jewelry box (although, paint from the right tiny fingers could be quite the treasure!). I like to make things for people. I’m not necessarily crafty, but I am resourceful (and budget-minded!).

Yes, emails from a hundred online companies are annoying. But I have a special email set up just for companies that I want to know what’s going on with. Snapfish, Mpix, Shutterfly and Inkubook are all a few of the printing companies I have used – and I often pit them against each other. Not long ago, I saw that Snapfish was having a pretty awesome sale – 50% off plus free shipping during a limited time frame. Now, I didn’t necessarily need anything at that point…but I thought towards the future. Mother’s Day was coming up on May 8 (there’s still time!) and my best friend’s birthday was coming up on the 14^th. Hmmmm.

I got back from a 10 day Caribbean cruise in March (go ahead, throw something at me, I can take it!). My in-laws bought me an incredibly nice camera for Christmas so I took some amazing pictures while we were in the Caribbean. I decided to turn some of those pictures into notecards for both my mom and my bff (since yes, they DO still write notecards!).

I finished my mom’s gift up yesterday. I got a small plastic bin at Dollar General ($1), a few packs of her favorite spearmint gum and a small bag of Tootsie Rolls (wrapped in a plastic bag JUST in case it gets crazy hot in the mail – don’t want chocolate smudging my notecards!). I’m really happy how it all came out!

I haven't filled my bff's box yet, but I still have some time to find some fun candies or accessory. This is also a really good idea for showers - you know the recipient is going to be writing thank-you notes so take pictures of the happy couple or have a baby-themed photo shoot. You don't have to be a professional photographer to take pretty pictures!

Oh, and a week after I received the notecards, my mom called and asked if I would turn some of my pictures into notecards for her. Talk about knowing someone J

Amazon

I've mentioned before that I love Amazon for buying gifts. There's just so much selection, so much randomness and so much STUFF! Now they've gone and made it even better.

Now I can make gift lists for anyone I buy gifts for - all the better to remember what I meant to buy them!

One thing I love about Amazon is it keeps track of all your previous purchases. Now, they let you go back through those purchases and make lists based on that. The two-person bicycle ornament? That was for Cinnamon. The book on how to tie your shoes in crazy ways? That was Beth! Based on these previous orders and any other items you add to that person - Amazon will then recommend other gifts! I don't always agree, but it's really nice to just surf around sometimes, find a gift that would be *perfect* for _____. All I have to do is just click and it's saved until birthday/anniversary/Christmas!

Gift giving just became a whole lot easier.

PS. Even if you don't want to actually buy from Amazon, it could be helpful to set up the account anyway. You can always buy the stuff from another company - although in my experience, Amazon typically is the cheapest!

Um...

Today's blog is a reversal of my regular blogs. Today's blog is a gift that I am begging you NOT to buy anyone.

I like to think that my array of friends and family are quite diverse. I have some conservatives, some liberals, Christians, athiests, fairly normal and fairly not...but this one. I just can't imagine one person on my lists...no, I take that back. I can't imagine anyone, PERIOD that I would ever buy this for. Or anyone that I can imagine buying for me.

A belly cast??

Really???

I'm not sure I'm going to want to remember that forever. Don't get me wrong, I think baby bumps are adorable. But I'm pretty sure pictures will suffice. Where would you put your belly cast? On your kitchen table? In the foyer? How would you store it???

For $20, I can take a TON of pictures from every angle. I'm good.

So note to everyone, don't buy this for me. 'Kay?

Thanks.

In the works...

Check back at the end of June. I've just booked my husband's birthday present and it is going to be insanely awesome. His birthday isn't until July 5, but what I have planned only happens certain days each month. I gave him an option of June 21-25 or July 12-14 time frames.

I'll give you a sneak peak by telling you what hubby knows:

- Leaving Wednesday, June 22 after we both get off work. Destination: Teaneck, NJ (right outside NYC).
- Spending two nights at the Marriott Glenpointe
- Thursday morning/early afternoon we will be doing "birthday extravaganza surprise"
- Thursday evening will be spent hanging out in NYC.
- Home on Friday, before the city weekend rush starts.

What a few of my friends are saying:

"oh my. he is going to be in heaven. seriously. you will never have to worry about a divorce from this one simple present. hahaha"

"Seriously, I don't know if you will ever be able to top this gift!"

Readin' on up.

Sometimes, simple gifts can be the biggest surprises. What about giving a gift that someone already knows they like?

Brad and I can spend hours in a bookstore. I linger longer in the book section than he does, but he keeps himself quite occupied over in the magazine section. It never ceases to amaze me the volume and variety of magazines available out there.

One year, for Christmas, I decided to give him the gift that keeps on giving – magazine subscriptions. I got him two – one to a surfing magazine and one to a snowboarding magazine.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem that much better than a stinking gift card. They still don’t get to open anything! But that’s easily remedied! Just run out to the closest bookstore, grab the latest issue (if you’re really ambitious, plan in advance and have a couple of months’ worth of issues!), stick them in a box and wrap it up! Something to open and enjoy before their next issue comes!

I also got a magazine subscription for a friend who was getting married a few months later. When I got the subscription, I put it in her future new last name. Just another extra special touch to make it personalized.

Sidenote: Just make sure your gift isn’t something they are already subscribed to! If they are and you really can’t find any other subscription out there that you think they’d like, see if you can renew their subscription for a year or two.

But, really? You can’t find anything interesting to give them???

 

Amazon has THOUSANDS of magazine subscriptions. Just try it. I dare you!

Eco-Friendly and "What Do I Do With This?"

As we all know, random gifts are my favorite. But I’ve been known to be *so* random, that I don’t even fully know what I’m giving someone.

In October, the small town we live in gets invaded by about 40,000 people to this arts& crafts festival they like to call Colorfest. I had some fun at Colorfest and bought quite a few unique Christmas gifts but this one takes the cake. At the time, I hadn’t seen anything like it, but as the months pass, I’ve seen them popping up more and more.

I’ve seen them described as:

-          Cigar holders

-          Spoon holders

-          Cheese & cracker platter

-          Nut holder

-          Gadget bowl

Some I’ve even seen made into recycled windchimes!

I did give one to my dad for Christmas and I think his plan is to hang it on a wall in his “mancave”.

Biker Buddies

I like to give people ornaments. I know that’s not super exciting or super original, but it can be somewhat original if you do it right. I’m talking about doing more than Hallmark’s specialty ornament of that year here.

One of my bestests, Cinnamon, lives in Florida (the beautiful state that hubby and I will *hopefully* be moving to soon!). She and her boyfriend ride bikes for fun. They each have their own bikes but they also have a super cool tandem bike! (I’m only a little jealous!)

This year I found this nifty little ornament representing one of their favorite hobbies as a couple:

How many times do you see a Christmas ornament with a guy and a girl tandem bike riding? I’d never seen one before, so I jumped right on it! (Less than $15 on Amazon, using a gift card so it was yet another free gift to give this Christmas).

Hopefully she will think of me every Christmas when she puts it on her tree J

Drink like a camel

I haven’t been slacking…I promise! Once I got the hubby nursed back to health, I got sick. It was eerily similar to his sickness but hopefully I’m on the upswing.

Onward to gift giving!

So there’s this girl who’s probably going to be my sister in law one day. She and I spent a lot of time last summer hiking in the parks close by to our houses with the dogs. Some days were 3 milers, other days were 8+. Just depended on how much we had to talk about J

Regardless of how long we spent out in the wilderness, she always carried a water bottle. I, being married to Mr. Outdoorsman, had bought this little handy dandy thing years ago:

A Camelbak. They come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colors. If you spend any time outside at all, this thing is one of the most useful, practical gadgets you can possibly have. Fill it with water (and ice if it’s a hot day), strap it to your back and then you are off on whatever adventure you have planned – with the use of both hands! It makes everything easier – kayaking, hiking, biking – anything you can think of!

Not long before Christmas, hubs and I were in good ‘ol REI and I saw Camelbaks on sale. Lightbulb on. She had never complained about carrying a water bottle around, but you could see that it wasn’t exactly convenient. Plus, we’ve talked about trying our hand at some adventure races together (trail running, trail biking and kayaking “triathlons”) and it would obviously be beneficial to have her water strapped to her back.

Happy trails!