As I wrote in yesterday’s post, when it comes to gift giving, personalized gifts are my favorite. There’s no chance of duplication. The recipient hasn’t already seen it at the mall. And hopefully opening a personalized present makes him/her feel loved and cherished, knowing the time and thought that went into the gift’s creation.
All year around, I enjoy taking pictures. I always have a camera in my purse, ready to document a get together, reunion, or even just a relaxed, easy Saturday at the farmer’s market. Having documentation of our everyday lives makes it easier to remember months and years later what normal was at another time. So when the holidays and birthdays come around, I often like to choose photo gifts. Whether it’s a homemade calendar, a picture on a mug, shirt, or ornament, I think I’ve done them all. (I’ve used different photo websites over the years, but Shutterfly is my personal favorite.)
PHOTO BOOKS: Once pictures have been transferred from the camera to the computer, a person can easily forget they were ever taken. Since these days they don’t need to be developed, most pictures never meet photo paper. That’s why I so enjoy photo books. It’s cozy to sit down with a book of memories and flip through them on the couch. Sure, I could pop open my laptop, but seeing a coffee table book of happy memories, invites me to linger over sweet days gone by.
Today I’m going to share a couple of photo books that I’ve made in the past, and maybe they’ll start your gears turning on photo gifts of your own.
After our honeymoon, I made two large 12×12 hardcover books for my husband. We’d both written about our travels on MySpace. (Yes, it was a while ago.) And so I took those travelogues and joined them with the pictures. I used different fonts for each of us, so that you could easily see which entry was a “she said” and which was a “he said.” When I page through them, I’m in Europe all over again.
When my best friend was having her first child, I saved every email that she wrote to me about the experience and all of the photos she attached along the way of her growing belly, setting up the nursery, and the hilarious picture of her husband wearing the sympathy belly. Then after her daughter was born, I put the emails into a book with the photos as a keepsake of her experience. I know plenty of new moms plan to document every stage of pregnancy, but it doesn’t always happen with all of the other preparations going on. I was so excited to give it to my friend, so that she could fully remember the experience. Plus, when she had her second daughter, she was able to do a bit of comparison of what she experienced when.
In addition to a book for moms to be, a book from emails could be made for college students or couples planning a wedding. Want to make a personalized cookbook for a friend or family member? A photo book could be a cool way to do it.
I’ll be back with more gift ideas next week!
Today is the last day to vote in the HHL contest to win a trip for two to Napa Valley! My husband is one of the finalists, and I’d be so tickled if you’d consider voting for him. He’s #6!
I have a confession to make. It’s really hard to buy presents for me. This may seem counterintuitive to some since I have several online wish lists that I keep up with regularity, but the problem is that I’m the Sherlock of presents. I’m always looking for clues and subtle signs of gifts in my future. My husband is always covering his tracks like a cat in a litter box, trying to throw me off from what I might sniff out. (This analogy has gone horribly wrong. Sorry about that.)
It’s not my fault. I really love presents. But before you start thinking that I’m a greedy, gift-fueled present monster, know that I love giving gifts every bit as much, if not more, than receiving them. That’s why this time of year when the lights go up and the Crosby goes on, I often find myself brainstorming, searching, and agonizing in the best way over what gifts I’ll be giving this year.
I’m not one to stand in line at two a.m. on Black Friday. You won’t find me hauling out a massive television from the mall. The kinds of gifts I love to give say something about my relationship with the recipient, and in some ways I like to think of birthdays and holidays as an excuse to give our nearest and dearest a love letter. Instead of paper and pencil, the letters are wrapped with a bow.
I have a lot to share with you, and so over the next few days I’ll be giving you a few of my favorite ideas from over the years. I’m including both gifts that I’ve given and gifts that I’ve received. I know Christmas is only two weeks away, and so some of them may be tricky or not possible. However, you can keep them in mind for future gift-giving occasions.
PERSONALIZED GLASSWARE: If you read my blog regularly, you might be aware of the character, Gulp. Gulp is a claymation dinosaur who my husband created out of clay when he was a boy with access to a Super 8 camera. In his boyhood films (see video above), Gulp downed Lego’s and pocket-sized cars one frame at a time. After puberty hit, claymation was abandoned, but then brought back to life later when David was working in the animation industry. Since then David has made a few Gulp shorts and about a year ago, he made a live action/animation cooking video with me. So when David was having a birthday last year, I had a personalized glass made for him using Gulp’s likeness, so that he could have a gulp with Gulp.
I just had to mail the artist, GeekyGlassware, a jpeg picture of Gulp, and they did the rest. The artist who made this glass (and the Doctor Who glasses I posted about last month) is now on vacation. However, with a search of “personalized glasses” or “personalized etched glasses” on Etsy, something like this may still be a possibility for this holiday season for someone on your list.
PERSONALIZED JEWELRY: You know how it is when you have a favorite restaurant in town. You don’t even need to look at the menu, because you have your favorite standing orders. The server could bring the dishes out to you as soon as they see you waltz in the door, because it’s the same highlight reel again and again. In our vegetarian days (before we’d both gone vegan), we had a favorite haunt in Burbank. Our go-to order was Greek salad, stuffed grape leaves, hummus and pita, and lentil soup. For our anniversary one year, David contacted the artists at Inedible Jewelry (whose work I’d enjoyed in the past) about making a personalized charm bracelet. With each entrée getting represented, they also included a tiny bottle of wine with the year of our wedding on it.
Check out all of the food items at Inedible Jewelry in case one of your beloved’s favorites is already there in necklace, bracelet, or earring form. FYI – some of the food depicts animal-based items, but there’s still quite a bit of fruits, vegetables, and vegetable-based entrees to go around. (Someone should give these sugar skull cookie earrings to Kittee!)
HOME VIDEOS ON DVD: During the 1980’s when VHS cameras were the size of a suitcase, getting to document our lives on video was a novelty. Before every person had a video camera by way of iPod in her or his pockets, parents were setting up tripods in the rows of school auditoriums. They were filming at plays, races, and holidays and trying to blend in as much as one could with an oversized camera hoisted on their shoulders. We thought those tapes would last forever. Then with replaying and age, they started breaking down long before we could pass them down to our grandchildren. (Now how are my grandchildren going to witness my junior high performance of The Music Fact Rap? Such a shame…)
So a few years ago for Christmas I transferred many of our old home movies from VHS to DVD. Using a capture card to connect a VCR to the computer, I edited the footage in iMovie, taking out the times when the camera was rolling but forgotten or whatnot. For sections that didn’t have much in the way of talking, I made music videos. There are still plenty of home movies left to transfer, but I made about ten DVD’s spanning the 80’s and 90’s. Spending that time watching and editing old family footage was a gift in itself. I felt like I was sitting there with my family, watching them/us in their/our daily lives. I loved remembering who they were before they were who they are.
I knew that my brothers, cousins, aunts, and parents would enjoy re-living those days again, but a completely unexpected bonus was how much my young nephew enjoyed those DVD’s. Even after the other nieces and nephews had chuckled over our 80’s hair and outfits and moved on, my nephew, who was about 7 or 8 at the time, kept watching and re-watching them. They were a glimpse into his family history. By now he knows those DVD’s better than I do! When he discovered that in those days we had an annual Thanksgiving football game, he decided that tradition needed to be revisited, and it came back with a vengeance. Recently, when he saw an uncle at an extended family event, he recognized him from those videos, even though he’d never seen him before in real life.
Of course, it takes some time to edit and put it all together, but the effort is so worth it! Plus, gift giving gives you a reason to do it today, before the tapes disintegrate more.
But wait, there’s more! The personalized gift ideas continue tomorrow…
Only a couple of days remain in the HHL Salad’tude Contest! Please vote! You can check out all of the amazing entries here. My husband is #6!
As I wrote in yesterday’s post, when it comes to gift giving, personalized gifts are my favorite. There’s no chance of duplication. The recipient hasn’t already seen it at the mall. And hopefully opening a personalized present makes him/her feel loved and cherished, knowing the time and thought that went into the gift’s creation.
PHOTO BOOKS: Once pictures have been transferred from the camera to the computer, a person can easily forget they were ever taken. Since these days they don’t need to be developed, most pictures never meet photo paper. That’s why I so enjoy photo books. It’s cozy to sit down with a book of memories and flip through them on the couch. Sure, I could pop open my laptop, but seeing a coffee table book of happy memories, invites me to linger over sweet days gone by.
After our honeymoon, I made two large 12×12 hardcover books for my husband. We’d both written about our travels on MySpace. (Yes, it was a while ago.) And so I took those travelogues and joined them with the pictures. I used different fonts for each of us, so that you could easily see which entry was a “she said” and which was a “he said.” When I page through them, I’m in Europe all over again.
When my best friend was having her first child, I saved every email that she wrote to me about the experience and all of the photos she attached along the way of her growing belly, setting up the nursery, and the hilarious picture of her husband wearing the sympathy belly. Then after her daughter was born, I put the emails into a book with the photos as a keepsake of her experience. I know plenty of new moms plan to document every stage of pregnancy, but it doesn’t always happen with all of the other preparations going on. I was so excited to give it to my friend, so that she could fully remember the experience. Plus, when she had her second daughter, she was able to do a bit of comparison of what she experienced when.
