Tag Archives: love gifts

A Future So Bright: Little Golden Lamp

13 Mar

This post is dedicated to all my lovely nieces and nephews, including Baby Still-In-The-Oven. I love you very much. Love, Your Favorite Aunt who dedicates posts to you and makes thoughtful homemade gifts and is the coolest and funniest and who will probably help you get away with something your parents wouldn’t approve of when you’re older… Favorite. Me. Tops.

As all the aunts and uncles out there know, the role of Favorite Relative is a coveted one. It takes a serious and complicated combination of charm, candy, and guilt to secure the spot.

In my  family, Favorite Aunt is a constant crusade and I’ll be the first to admit it can get dirty. I’ve secretly cut bigger slices of birthday cake, started whisper-campaigns about my sisters being “stinky” or “ucky”, and read bedtime stories until my mouth was so parched I could barely eek out the words: “Now…who’s …your…favorite?”

Nary a holiday has gone by without a niece of nephew stuck in a dining room chair, eyes darting from face to face to face to face to face while we each remind him or her how wonderful we are. Will their loyalties hold? Will they remember the pop bottle rocket you made with them last summer when they’re holding this spring’s sidewalk chalk in their grimy little hands? How quickly they forget. Oh, how quickly they forget.

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The Cheap Sweets: Last Minute Valentines

13 Feb

Oscar Wilde said, “Who, being loved, is poor?“, which, looked at one way, is the whole point of this blog. However, reading this quote on the 12th of any given month, student loan check-writing day, a day of tear-smudged ink and boxed wine-smudged everything else, can give you a different perspective on love’s ability to pay the bills.

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And the card attached would say…Thank You for Letting Me Scrub the Potatos: Thanksgiving Box

21 Nov


In my family, everyone contributes something to the Thanksgiving table. Momma makes the meal and the pies but we’re all grown-ups now, so everyone else is in charge of the appetizers, side dishes, drinks, condiments, and table settings…everyone else except me.

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It’s The Great Fall Care Package Charlie Brown!

12 Oct

It’s officially autumn and we Midwesterners love our autumn. More than that, we love getting cozy. Digging out our jackets (and maybe finding a $5 bill or that lost glove in the pocket), snuggling under quilts, and sipping that first cup of warm apple cider. The beauty of the season and the general comfiness of it all, the scarves and the scent of dead leaves and the thick socks, is our consolation prize for the very long and windy winter we’ll have to endure.

This makes for a perfect opportunity to make a cozy fall care package for someone you love. If you’ve got someone in your life who, say, waited all night in a pumpkin patch with you and was subsequently cheated out of her tricks or treats or who came and got you out of that pumpkin patch in the middle of the night and tucked you into your nice warm bed, you probably owe them a little thank you gift. Here are some ideas to help you make one without shelling out too much of that money you found in last year’s autumn jacket:

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Goodbye Summer Love Stationary

31 Aug

summer stationary

With just a few days of summer left on the calendar, now is the time of year when the air is thick with promises made in parked cars and on deserted beaches, in (and watch out cause I’m really showing my hickness off here) the empty beds of pickup trucks and under the glow of your parents’ motion censor porch lights. These are the promises of summer lovers and they are, sadly but most assuredly, of the empty variety.

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Carole King Medley Included: Rainy Day Box

30 Apr

If your mom was a cool as mine was, she kept a little shoe box under the bed or stuffed away in some closet and ONLY brought it out on really rainy spring days when you couldn’t play outside and were absolutely bored out of your mind. That’s the beauty of the Rainy Day Box: You forget about it until someone reminds you it’s there and then you feel like you’ve found 20 bucks in last year’s winter coat. This is a great gift for kids because kids should always have some magic and fun in their lives, especially on rainy days. But it’s also a really thoughtful gift for your spouse or partner to pull out on really gray boring days or to take along when you go on vacation with a group of friends just in case you get snowed in, rained in or hungover’d-in.

A few rules for creating the Rainy Day Box: Decorate the box, it doesn’t have to be anything special but it MUST be covered in construction paper, tissue paper, or tinfoil/ DON’T bring it out until it’s needed, otherwise it will get old/ And last but not least: serve it with grilled cheese and soup.

Here are some ideas for Rainy Day Box stuffings, although I suggest making it all your own:

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