Guide to Gift Giving

Grace: I am the first to admit that I am totally overwhelmed by shopping, especially for the holidays.  I don’t want to give anyone something similar to what I gave them last year, but it’s so easy to pigeon-hole people and fall into a pattern!  Jewelry is always my go-to gift, but it’s so difficult to find unique sterling silver jewelry!  Not only do I feel like I give the same style of jewelry over and over, but I also always give people earrings and I become so flustered when they can’t wear earrings.

However, in order to break this earring addiction, I’ve recently discovered the joys of bracelets.  I always feel very elegant when wearing one (even though I’m actually not), but there’s not a lot of variety, I feel.  This website, though, sells handcrafted sterling silver bracelets that are trendy but also unique.  One of my favorites on this site is the Stone and Shell Silver Bracelet.  It’s very simple, but the contrast of the bright blue Peruvian turquoise and the vibrant orange spondylus shell give it that unique twist.  Also, there are only 5 left, so you know that you’re giving a gift that no one else has.

Dan: I am not an expert, but to my eyes that is a very beautiful bracelet and it is no surprise to me that there are only 5 left.  It seems so elegant and would look really great on anyone who chooses to have it despite what they are wearing.  It also seems very flexible, it would more than acceptable to wear at a informal event or one where all eyes will be on you.

Dan: This holiday season is forecasted to set a record for the lowest amount of retail sales in U.S. history.  Even though, due to a global decrease of demand resulting in lower prices across a wide range of products, people will still be stringent this season.  Therefore, how are you going to balance your wallet and accomplish the same type of holiday season for your family and friends?

Try to seek out quality cost effective gifts.  Also, sometimes the best gifts don’t have to come with a high price tag.  If you know someone who is going to experience these types of anxieties in the coming months, give them a gift that will save them in the long run.  There are three main warehouse retailers whose annual memberships cost around $45 - $80.  Buy someone you know a membership, so that they can go out and take advantage of their two-step revene cost system.  Warehouse retailers obtain a majority of their profit from costless acceptance fees, and then sell their product slightly above marginal cost.  If you can get the membership for free, this is the best place to cost effectively shop for items when you need them.

Grace: A few years ago, my friend got her mom a membership to Costco as a Christmas gift, and her mother was absolutely thrilled.  It has really made shopping much easier for her mother, and she always wanted to become a member but never actually had the time to do it.  It’s always great to think of someone’s future well being when buying a gift, and the gift recepient is sure to feel the same.

Grace: The one thing I can’t stand about technology (besides all the troubleshooting) is all those wires laying around!  I always get my cellphone charger confused and tangled with my sister’s charger, which, in turn, is always caught on my iPod charger.  I love all my gadgets, but the mess they make is almost not worth it.  I actually dread when I have to charge something, opening that drawer full of wires and chargers and weeding through it.

However, I found this Charging Valet that would make for a great orginizational gift.  It has a power strip in the back that lets you keep all your chargers organized and ready for when you need them.  Everything has its own little space, which keeps your gadgets (and wires) from getting tangled.  I also love that with this Charging Valet, I won’t have to worry about where I put my charging cellphone.  Normally, I just plug it into any outlet, including one on the floor, and just leave it there until it’s done.  Unfortunately, I usually can’t remember where I put it!  This is a great gift for someone who is sick of tangled wires and just wants to get organized!

Dan: Before now I have never heard about a charging valet before.  You make a valid point and this organizational gift would be a great help!  When I was confronted with the same problem, I ended up using twisty-ties, absolutely not as effective as the valet would be.

Dan: What is unique jewelry?  Unique jewelry, in terms of my definition, is not something that is cranked through a factory.  Jewelry should not be an item that is made in dozens at one point in time on a production line.  Jewelry is unique when it is handcrafted artisan jewelry.  When you know that your jewelry is made by experienced hands who have a passion for what they’re doing, you know that you are receiving a quality product.

Either for yourself or for the hectic and fast approaching holiday season, unique silver bracelets will be hot on the list.  However, when you go holiday shopping where do you go?  Do you go to the mall or perhaps a department store?  I guarantee you that you will not find an unique jewelry in these locations, let alone anything that is unique.  You will only be able to find great items such as sterling silver sodalite jewelry bracelets online or at a personalized store.  Go from the heart and find something GREAT, UNIQUE, and WORTHWHILE for someone this holiday season.  You only have one shot a year to make an impression, this is your year.

Grace: In addition to being a unique piece of jewelry, this sterling silver sodalite bracelet is also extremely versatile and wearable.  Unique jewelry doesn’t always mean it has to be a stand-out piece that can only be worn once in a while and by itself.  I love jewelry that has multiple purposes and can be worn for any occasion.  Why would you buy a shirt that can only be worn at a certain event and with a certain outfit?  Same goes for jewelry.  With very simple and classic details, this bracelet can be worn at any time, but it’s also something that not everyone will have.  In short, it’s a great gift!

Dan: First semester of my sophomore year of college I took a class officially titled as, “ECON302 Banking and Monetary Policy.” That class ended up becoming the bread and butter of my life as it’s about all I do in college now.  However, my professor, when getting an exam back or when recognizing a great group effort at an attempt to analyze economic phenomena, such as the Japanese bond crisis or when interest rates in the United States were around 15%, she would hand out a special gift…thousands upon thousands of dollars of shredded money!

YOU’RE RICH!  Not really since its been destroyed, but various Federal Reserva Banks sell pretty packages of currency that has been taken out of circulation due to wear and tear.  Even though you wish you could glue it all back together again, it is a really neat gift idea.  You can use it for educational purposes, when teaching the true value of money.  It’s not the paper composite it’s printed out, but the value you can get in exchange for it.

Grace: This is a very unique gift idea, because at the heart of it, the gift is not so much about a physical object, but more about an important life lesson.  Lots of people, especially those from the younger generation, don’t understand the value of money, and then when they go off on their own, continue to practice bad spending and saving habits.  Although this might not seem to be the coolest gift ever, it’s certainly the most helpful in the long run.

Grace: In my never-ending quest to find new, unique earrings, I came across these beautiful, handcarved earrings.  They are incredibly unique; I’ve never seen anything like them before!  They are made from mate or carved gourd, an ancient South American tradition in which a gourd is hand carved with a hot tool (in the past it was a burning ember).  Since these earrings are hand carved, no two are exactly the same, even within a pair.  Not only is the center of these earrings handmade, but the silver detailing is also made completely by hand.

If you know someone who loves all sorts of handmade silver jewelry, I would highly recommend these earrings  They would make an especially great gift for someone who is interested in organic jewelry.  These handmade carved gourd earrings are a great addition to any woman’s jewelry collection.

Dan: Wow those handmade carved gourd earrings are really astonishing.  I have never heard of such a unique and interesting material before.  Given the amount of time to make the material alone before turning it into jewelry, it must be really valuable.  It makes for an excellent and rare gift!

Grace: I’ve been talking a lot about personalized gifts or gifts that have special meaning to the recipient.  One way to do this, is to literally give a personalized gift, such as a necklace with the recipient’s name engraved on it.  However, personalized gifts are not limited to jewelry; I found this great site that has a vast array of items that can be personalized.

The most obvious choice for a personalized gift is a piece of jewelry, such as a necklace or a bracelet.  However, this site also offers personalized clocks, pens, music boxes, and water globes.  An engraved music box or water globe would be the perfect gift for a younger girl, while an engraved clock or flask would be great for an older man.  I love the range of products provided (they even personalize pillows and blankets), and there is also a great selection of fonts for you to choose from.  This is definitely a great go-to site for a special gift!

Dan: Great idea, I can’t believe we did spot this great website earlier.  Personalized gifts are really the way to go if you want to add some additional extra meaning.  Inside jokes, or something meaningful for that significant other can read add value to any gift!

Dan: I am a college student, and even though I try as hard as possible to stay clean, neat, and organized, sometimes it simply does not happen for me.  Between all of my classes going into full overdrive, missing classes for economics team due to traveling, and socializing; carpet soaks and dusting do not make it in the schedule.  So, to take care of the problem I continually gift myself a bottle of febreze.  It is a great cleaning gift idea because it does not just mask smells that are embedded in clothes, bedding, and carpet but it lifts them out.

Proctor and Gamble has many different products out of the febreze line (there are febreze candles, detergent, spray, aerosal, etc.) and all of them help to freshen up your life a bit.  There has been some controversy as to the overall “wellness” factor associated with febreze.  Containing many artificially inseminated ingredients it is not exactly “green”.  If that is something important to you than do not buy febreze.

Grace: This is definitely a great gift idea for a college student.  My room gets so messy and whenever I want to clean it, I have to ask around and literally beg people to borrow their cleaning materials.  In addition to febreze products, I would definitely recommend either a broom, small vacuum cleaner, or a swiffer, and probably some anti-bacterial wipes.  Even though I don’t spend much time in my room anymore, it’s still nice to come back to a clean living space!

Grace: My dad recently went through a photo revitalization craze, where he scanned all our old slides using a digital converter and retouched them using Photoshop.  I thought the project was a little ambitious because we have so many slides, but in the end, it was a great idea because now we have those pictures digitally saved and revitalized.

However, not all our photos are slides and I know my dad would loves to find a way to preserve them too.  I found this great Digital Photo Converter that scans photos and uploads them onto your computer at a very high quality.  Of course, it’s possible just to take your regular scanner and scan photos, but they won’t be at the same quality.  This is a great gift for photo enthusiast or just someone who is determined to preserve the past in a digital form.

Dan: Hey Grace!  I would have to say that last year my parents went through the same revilatization process that your Dad did.  It took them an extremely long time to scan onto the computer and then re-touch everything using a photo program.  In the end they were not very happy with the quality and ended up buying something extremely similar to your gift recommendation to do the job over.  I would also look into converting your old videos, because those will also get destroyed the longer you let the tapes stand.

Dan: What is spondyllus?  Spondyllus is a shell that is collected off of the shore of Peru and possesses a rare and beautiful look and texture.  Mostly a tint of purple, they can be polished so that they are shining bright.  Ancient Peruvian royalty used to have the most experienced divers in their nations go into the deep to find these spiny shells because of their great beauty.  This shell, when combined with silver, can create some really great sterling silver jewelry.

One website features spondyllus shell jewelry that is combined with many other beautiful accents such as silver, huayruro seeds, opal, etc to create the finest handmade necklaces and jewelry.  One specific example that I would like to highlight is called the Silver Cascade Necklace; its title comes from its beautiful silver work that cascades over a flawless and rich rectangle of purple spondyllus.  I gave this necklace as a gift over the summer and they really adored it as one of their favorite peices of jewelry.  If you are looking for Peruvian spondyllus shell than you are also looking for the most esquisite and beautiful jewelry on the market.  Go check out spondyllus jewelry for your next gift!  The HOLIDAYS are approaching!

Grace: I also gave this necklace as a gift to someone this summer (my mother, actually) and she absolutely loves it.  It looks beautiful on the website and in person, but to see it actually on someone is completely different.  I was especially struck by the purple color of the shell.  I like purple as much as the next person, but it’s not my favorite color and I always find it really hard to wear, but the pendant on this necklace is just the right size and the purple is just the right vibrancy to really make it pop.  I would highly recommend this gift!