Are you a good shopper?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m not, when I don’t know what I’m looking for. Soon, I’m going to need something as a birthday gift for my grown daughter, and since I’ve retired recently, am not able to give her enough money that it wouldn’t seem laughable (or pitiful)! So I’m wondering if you’ve ever thought of, or heard of, or given, or been given, something nice and loving that I could manage. :rolleyes: Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have two grown sons and their wives with birthdays coming up later in the year also, so …

Thanking you in advance,

MizQuirk

2

A photo album you put together—themed, maybe—vacations or proms or birthdays?

3

Photo albums are good, yeah.

Has she ever mentioned any books that are hard to get? (Say, “gee, I wish I could find my favorite author’s first book…”) Or maybe she likes cookbooks, or gardening books–you could find a couple neat, out-of-print used books on abebooks.com or similar. (Well, I’d be happy.)

If you can sew at all, you could try quilting! A wall hanging or lap-size quilt doesn’t take much time or money, and people are always way more impressed than you deserve.

4

I’m an excellent shopper when shopping for gifts, but unfortunately it’s more of a talent than a skill. I’m just very good at going to the store and finding something perfect for someone.

My wife is always asking me “What are we going to get X for Y.” She hates the fact that I never know until I get to the store.

If you know somebody with a good computer system, you could possibly make her a personalized bookmark. My wife made one for me with our wedding picture in it and stuck it in the book I was reading without telling me. It was a very nice surprise.

5

This doesn’t relate to gifts, but -
I’m a GOD when it comes to shopping.

Classy sport coat
1 pair dress pants
2 dress shirts
2 ties
1 belt
1 pair dress shoes
dark socks

1 casual shirt
2 pairs shorts

door to door in 30 minutes.

6

Whenever I don’t have much money, and I have to give a gift, I usually go to the local Dollar Store and/or Target and buy an assortment of small, fun stuff like

1.) Candle
2.) Small picture frame
3.) Bar of “herbal” or otherwise fancy soap
4.) Candy/chocolate
5.) Single-serving of gourmet coffee/tea
6.) Pretty coffee mug
7.) Paperback novel from a used bookstore

You get the idea. None of this stuff costs more than a buck or two apiece, and if you buy a cheap gift bag, one pack of tissue paper, and curling ribbon, you can wrap it all up individually and then put it in the bag with a card and it looks fabulous and costs around $10/$15 total. It’s nice to do themes, too; I did a “spa theme” for a friend’s birthday last year that was just a candle, a bar of herbal soap, an inflatable terry bath pillow, a mug, green tea, and a little glass jar I bought and filled with coconut oil (which makes a great moisturizer). I think it set me back about $17 for all of it. (I already had the coconut oil, though, and the green tea. I just wrapped up five bags of tea with ribbon and put it in the mug. :D) She loved it!

I like giving lots of small stuff if I can’t afford one good “big gift,” and it’s lots of fun for the recipient to open each little tissue-wrapped item.

If she’s a drinker, you can do a small flask of liquor, some thrift-store glasses, some cute coasters, and a little cocktail book like they sell at Half Price. If she likes having her nails done assemble a manicure set. If she likes taking pictures buy her a photo album, a couple of rolls of film, and a picture frame…etc., etc., etc…

You can find all of this stuff at thrift and discount stores and save yourself a bundle, and everyone will think you give wonderful, creative gifts.

When really, of course, you’re just cheap. :wink:

7

I love the photo album idea!

(Especially since my MIL has zero pictures of my husband displayed or available in albums. She claims that his childhood pictures are packed away somewhere, and I keep asking to see them, and she always makes an excuse. Believe it or not, until this year, I had only ever seen one picture of my husband younger than college age–and it was a really unfortunate bar mitzvah picture. After we had our son, people kept asking me which one of us as babies we looked like. I hemmed and hawed a lot, not really wanting to admit that I had never seen a baby picture of my husband. Finally, when his aunt started telling me how beautiful he was as a baby, I blurted out “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen a picture of him and [mother-in-law] won’t show me any.” Next time I saw her, said aunt gave me a baby picture of my husband. :slight_smile: I was really touched, and realized how weird it was to have been joined at the hip with this guy for seven years, and having never seen a baby picture.)

So, my situation’s a bit unusual, but I think that putting together albums of your kids’ childhood pictures would be delightful. You could include pictures of various relatives and ancestors, too. Caption everything so they and their families know what they’re looking at. It’s really a great idea.

I’d caution you to make sure that you get archival quality photo albums and materials. But archival quality albums aren’t expensive–just probably more than you’d pay at the dollar store. Heck, you might be able to find 'em at a dollar or “clearance” store. I’ll bet you could make the three of them for under 10 bucks each, easy.

And if the photo thing isn’t going to work for you, what about something else that you can do or make? My mom is a remarkably bad gardener, but her friend has been giving her patio planters with herbs and flowers for the last couple of years, and my mom loves them.

8

Audrey, I do that all the time, too! I also try to base it on the interests of my friends or the occassion: for example, my best friend’s younger sister recently turned eighteen. I knew she’d be getting a lot of “Congratulations, you’re an adult” type gifts, so I went through Wal-Mart and got flavored lip gloss, sparkly fingernail polish, bubble bath, pink flip flops, a tank-top-and-panty set, and a few other things like that. I put it all in a big pink-trimmed tote bag that she can use when she goes away to college. I tried to make sure that most of the things she would actually use, even though put all together it looked like a gift a six-year-old would die for :slight_smile: We’re both playful people, so it was an ideal gift for her from me, and I only spent about twenty bucks!

If you’re willing to spend a little more money, try this: for Mother’s Day this year, I went to a salon in my mom’s town and got a gift certificate for a pedicure (cost: $30). I didn’t want to just hand her an envelope, though, so I wrapped it up with some foot lotion, a foot scrubber, some fingernails polish, and a pair of fluffy houseshoes. Total cost: about $40.

So, MizQuirk, just give us a rough idea of what your daughter and daughters-in-law are interested in, and I’m sure that Audrey Levins or I could give you a shopping list for the ideal birthday gifts :slight_smile:

9

Wow! I’m really touched by the effort you all put into helping me like this. I’ll be off to the dollar stores and discount stores tomorrow. I’m actually looking forward to it, for once. My daughter is into/has horses (4), but seems to have anything she could want for them. That’s the trouble–she and the DILs are all spoiled by their husbands/SO. They all have fancy cameras, and I have albums full of their growing-up photos, which they love looking at, as you knew they would. But I’m sure there are ‘little things’ they’ll like. Hope that works out for my sons, too. They always liked gift certificates from Home Depot, etc, but this year–well, I can’t go that big.

Thanks again for all your help and ideas! :wink:

MizQuirk

10

PLANT

flowers die… but plants keep living and growing and brighten and freshen rooms. so life affirming.

she’ll think of you whenever she waters it.
maybe get her a nice pot to put it in. or buy a basic pot but decorate it to personalize it.

11

A friend of mine recieved a calendar from his daughter-in-law that she had made on the computer. On each month was a different photo of his granddaughter - in a pumpkin patch for October, in a raincoat for April, etc. This was something inexpensive yet meant a lot to him.

12

Maybe make her a website?

I’ve just done my own homepage

It was finished in an hour, (the site sais it could be done in 15 minutes). And I know NOTHING about making professional websites. Just basic everyday-user stuff you probably know too.

You could make her a decent on-line CV if she’s looking for a job, an advertisement if she has her own little business, or just make her nice site celebrating her as a fine person, good mum, good daughter etc. A website makes your appreciation for her public in the same way an advertisement in the paper does, but it won’t cost you a buck!

13

A little caveat is that your loved ones may not want their name, photo, etc put out on the internet without you checking with them first. Personally, I would freak out :slight_smile:

I have however given gift certs to family members for websites.

14

MizQuirk, if you found some inexpensive photo frames at the discount stores (have you gone yet? ;)) it would be a nice idea to take some of those “youngster” photos of your daughter, or sons for the DIL’s, and just get a photocopy to put in the frames. That way you keep the original safe in the album, but they get a copy, and it didn’t cost you hardly anything. You could even get one of those cheap multi-opening frames and do a collage of your daughter/son(s) for their SOs, all with photocopies.

I know I would love something like that of Mr. Levins; he doesn’t have any pictures of himself as a youngster and his mother’s never shown me any. (Similar situation, Green Bean. Doesn’t it suck! Same thing–the pictures are all “tucked away” somewhere and I don’t want to be rude and just demand to see them, but I would love some baby/youngster pictures of him. She’s a very nice lady but she’s not particularly sentimental, so I don’t think it occurs to her that I might want to own or at least see a few of these pictures.)

I’m a big believer in photocopying old family pictures and framing that, rather than the original, b/c a cheap frame can ruin a picture very quickly, particularly if it’s already old, and you can’t replace the original, of course. (I’m an ex-custom framer, so I’ve talked a lot of people out of framing old original family photographs. It just isn’t worth risking.)

Just thought you might like another suggestion, MizQuirk! There’s nothing better than giving a cheap gift that’s still wonderful and unique.

15

How about a memory book? I don’t mean an album, although you could certainly include pictures, but small stories of your memories of her.

For example:

*I remember how brave you always were as a child. You never cried when you fell down and skinned your knee - you just got back up and took off running back to whatever adventure you had going at the time. *

*You loved performing. We would attend the free concerts at the park during the summer, and you always danced to the music. You were so beautiful and so free it made my heart ache to watch you. *

*When you became ill at age 10, and no longer had the strength to dance, your courage kept me going through all the hospitals and tests. *

Well, you get the idea. Even if she has heard the stories a hundred times, they will seem more special when written in a book for her.

I would have loved to get something like this from my mother.