Timeless

One of the best and easiest ways to make a personalized gift is with a shadow box. It really goes with any occasion.

For example, for our wedding, one of Brad’s aunt made us a shadow box. It has some pretty little decorations, a picture from our save the date cards, and our invitation. She told us she does that for every wedding they go to. It’s also special to us because she and her husband were the ones who drove us from the reception to our hotel (and then off to our after-party!). I didn’t really know this particular aunt and uncle very well before the wedding but they were one of the best parts of the wedding. They shared their words of wisdom and well wishes the whole way to the hotel. We have it hanging in the kitchen now and I think of them and that ride often.

 We got married in the fall, hence the leaves and fallish colors!

Brad’s cousin Tara turns 16 today. When I was in North Carolina last weekend I stopped at  HomeGood’s and found a beautiful shadow box for less than $15. I came home, printed some pictures from the family beach trip we took this summer and bam! Instant personalized gift! I’ve been tossing around putting some little pieces of memorabilia around inside but I’ve been holding off – I want this shadowbox to be something that she can change out the pictures in. Obviously I would never change the pictures in my wedding shadowbox. But for a 16 year old – I don’t want her to feel like I spent SOOO much time on it that she can never change the pictures. This shadowbox is incredibly easy – it came with a few pushpins and the front cover literally just lifts open. I want this shadowbox to be a base but something she can personalize however she wants down the road.

Whether it’s a timeless shadowbox or just a “right now” shadowbox, it’s a great way to personalize a gift if you’re on a limited budget. Mine cost less than $20 (and would have cost closer to $15 if I could have found my flash drive – then I could have printed the pictures at CVS!). 

Tasty Gift

In my family, there’s a tradition. For every bride in the family (doesn’t matter if you are born into the family or marrying into the family), you are given a family cookbook. All of the families are asked to contribute and a lot of recipes are ones that were handed down from grandparents, etc.


This past weekend was my future sister-in-law’s wedding shower. My mother and aunt both attended with me and we had a great time talking about the “good ‘ol days” – (okay, so maybe they talked about the good ‘ole days and I just provided some comic relief). They were talking about how much the cookbook has evolved over the years – the first one started with just some recipe cards put into a box. At some point it went to 3 ring binders.

I was the first bride in my family in….well over a decade. And it was worth the wait!

Thanks to my best friend Kristi, my mom was able to put together the absolute best wedding gift ever – a Tastebook Cookbook.

This book is fantastic. Not only can you totally personalize it the way you want, its extremely durable and looks absolutely professional.

Here are some pictures:

Another great feature is you can add recipes. When I got married, my mom solicited some recipes from my brother to put in the cookbook. She went ahead and bought two cookbooks when I got married, assuming that my brother would get married at some point. His cookbook didn’t have any recipes from me in it though. So once he got engaged, my mom had me go online and order some “replacement” cards with my recipes and pictures on them! So with every bride comes a few more recipes!

Obviously, this cookbook was a hit at the shower. The bride’s mother even commented on how she’d like to put one together for HER family – and it’s a great way to store family recipes. You can put pictures with the recipes and even write notes on the recipe. There are a lot of recipes from my grandmother in my cookbook, which means a lot to me since she was such a great cook but died before I had a chance to really appreciate it.

It says they start around $19.99 but the cheapest I saw started at $29.99. They’re worth it, though. Great quality and really make it into something special.

Cornwho?

I’ve talked before about my hubby – the man who has everything and if he sees something he wants, he gets it before anyone else can. So slowly, I’m learning – sometimes I have to think ahead for him. What’s something he doesn’t know he wants yet?

For his birthday this past July, I started researching a few months earlier. What is something he likes to do that he could do at home? What’s something he’s never mentioned wanting but might want?

So…I took a risk.

I went all out.

I got…

Cornhole boards.

Not just any cornhole boards.

Jack Daniels cornhole boards.

Not just any Jack Daniels cornhole boards.

Matching black and white bags.

And, the big surprise…

Lights that go inside the holes so the game doesn’t stop just because the sun goes down!

Another good gift is the drink holders, but I figured he could always build those on his own if he really wanted them...

Just Because

It’s fun to give gifts “just because.” I think a lot of times they mean more to people because they’re not expected. Sending a “just because” gift shows the person that “hey, I’m thinking about you and wanted to make your day a little brighter.”

I’m pretty notorious for sending flowers. Who says a significant other has to be the one to always send flowers? Are my single friends supposed to just never get flowers until they find a boyfriend? Preposterous. No, it’s not a practical gift. But it does put a smile on someone’s face and remind them they are loved – whether it be family, friend or lover. I don’t tend to use 1-800 Flowers though – I prefer to search local stores wherever my recipient lives and find an arrangement through them. Nothing against the big corporations (Undercover Boss actually gave me some relief that the world might be okay), but it’s always nice to support local businesses when you can.

Think flowers are too cliché? Okay then, how about cookies?

Cookies by Design lets you choose from cookie cakes, cookie baskets, cookie trays…the possibilities go on. Still hooked on the flower idea? You can even send a cookie bouquet.

Starting around $14. Just be prepared – if you send these to a friend’s office, they might not get many of them!!

Cookies too simple? A former employer turned me on to this little jewel:  Shari’s Berries. Chocolate dipped strawberries, chocolate dipped cookies, brownie pops, cupcakes and more. I especially love all the different chocolate designs they use when dipping. If you’re wanting to spend a little to make a wedding shower go a little elegant, they even have wedding berries! Just be prepared because 24 of these beauties go for close to $50. Worth it? Quite possibly!

Everyone you know on a diet? And allergies? No problemo – Edible Arrangements! Beautiful, healthy and even semi-practical! Although I’ve sent Kristi just about all of the above, I chose to send this particular arrangement to her office. She’s a dentist – I thought that was the most appropriate gift to send!

Starting at $24!

The Wheel Keeps a-Spinnin'

Sometimes it's more about the practicality than the novelty.


I had three guestbook attendants at my wedding. One was a cousin - the only cousin I have who is remotely near my age. One was my now brother-in-law's girlfriend and the other was my brother's now-fiance. I wanted to give them something nice, usable, and kind of fall related.


You'll find that I am a rather big Etsy junkie. You can find nearly anything on Etsy and my experiences have always been great. The sellers on Etsy are much easier to negotiate with if you're ordering multiple items and it's easier to change details that don't exactly work. Not really something you can do at major department stores.


Since I got married in October, I wanted something to represent that crisp, "getting colder" season that I love so much. So I found a friend from high school on Etsy who...

Makes beautiful pottery! She had made a mug or two and posted them on her Etsy page and I really loved them.

At first, I was only going to get one mug per attendant because the price was a little steeper than I wanted to pay.

But we started talking and she gave me a deal if I gave them each two (which is what I wanted to do anyway)

So they each got two mugs stuffed with yummy hot chocolate! 


Go to Lovin Designs on Etsy for pottery, jewelry and crotchet goodies.


Also - hot chocolate, tea, coffee, candy...it's so easy to cater to the recipient with something like these mugs. And I don't know about you, but I drink out of a mug at least once a day :)

Diapers and Towels, oh my!

This gift is more of a do-it-youself-er but the good news is, you can use it for baby showers or wedding showers!

Let's start with the baby shower. Someone, somewhere, came up with this idea to turn diapers into a cake. An experienced cake looks something like...

Shown here...

Mine, on the other hand, looked more like this:

You can google tutorials all day long on YouTube. Just find one with the amount of instruction that you feel you need and go to town. In a nutshell, you're just rolling up diapers and sticking rubber bands around them to keep them rolled up. Although the mother-to-be I made this for had registered for diapers, Target happened to be out of them. I wound up with some of the baby powder smelling ones which made the  experience kind of pleasant actually :) We found some fun ribbon that my mom had saved from somewhere and hot glued them around the diapers. There is also a big stick (think wooden skewers) that goes in the middle and you form the diapers in a circle around that (using a large rubber band to keep the diapers together too). Yeah, I'm not the best instruction giver. I would definitely google on YouTube because the tutorial I watched was fantastic. You can't really see it in my picture, but there's also the cutest pair of baby shoes tied at the top with the big ribbon. I thought it was a fun way to tie in something besides diapers!

Then you can do essentially the same thing with towels. I haven't actually done this myself, but I saw one at my friend Amber's wedding. Hers had those little fake wedding bands clipped to parts of it, which I thought was a nice addition. Here's an example of a Towel wedding cake...

Of course, depending on their color scheme, it could get interesting, but just simple, solid towels make this a unique and fun gift. If you're giving a shower, this makes a great centerpiece, too!

The Guy Who Has Everything

It was my first Christmas with my now-husband. Well, technically our second but our first Christmas we were too “new” to really celebrate Christmas. We were both still in college in North Carolina, about to go home to our respective states – me to Virginia, him to Maryland.  

I was freaking out.

Here was this guy that I really, really liked. I REALLY wanted to impress him with an awesome first Christmas gift. The problem was…this guy had everything.

If he saw something he really wanted or needed, he got it. He might wait a day or week or two, but if it was something he really wanted, he didn’t wait for anyone to get it for him. He just got it himself.

Great. This guy I might be spending the next 50 Christmases with is one of “those” – one of those guys who has EVERYTHING.

I figured out quickly that I was going to have to think outside the box with this kid. My thought process turned into, “What’s something he would love to have but hasn’t thought of yet?”

My first ideas are usually sports related. Who are his favorite teams? Does he have 50 t-shirts but no sweatshirts? Would he go crazy for a Maryland Terrapin trash can (for the record, he bought that one on his own)? I googled around for awhile until I found the gift that would kill three birds with one stone.

BASKETBALL TICKETS!!!!!!

Brad loved Maryland.

My brother and Dad loved Duke. Anyone following me yet?

 But…..Duke basketball tickets are hard to find, especially AT Duke. And Maryland is a little too far to go from North Carolina, just for a game. What’s a girl to do with a great idea that she can’t execute?

You forget, I was in ACC Basketball country.

I’m going to go ahead and put it out there that I am, by all accounts, a Virginia Tech fan. If you live in North Carolina you are a diehard fan of Duke, North Carolina or NC State. Anyone else and you just don’t count which usually keeps you out of plenty of heated arguments. That being said…NC State was the least…desired…tickets of the colleges in NC. They had this nifty little packaged deal where I could get 2 tickets for 4 games: NC State vs. Duke, vs. Maryland, vs. Wake Forest…and to be perfectly honest I don’t even remember who the 4^th game was for.

Anyways, basketball tickets, baseball tickets…whatever kind of sports team the man in your life loves…make great gifts. Even if they love top tiered teams – those teams always play lower tier teams. If you can find tickets at one of those games, not only will you save a few bucks, but you’ll be the handful of fans in your color and most likely watch your team pull out the win! (Ours unfortunately didn’t win that time, but at least both teams were red so we didn’t stand out too much haha).