April 3, 2008 Comments Off
span style=”font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;”Here we have the second installment of Gifts for Guys- Shindigs and Hootananies! Commonly known as events , parties or the like. Sometimes is the perfect gift isn’t a popping out in your head maybe something you can put a bow on is in order. Many times, I think that these can be the gifts that are remembered the most because it’s not here- use this- it’s a built up to the event and several hours of fun after. Also great for those living in small spaces- memories are don’t take up any unnecessary space next to your couch or on your desk./spanbr /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R_TXT3wxntI/AAAAAAAAAEg/E3f7DFGxOTU/s1600-h/shindigs.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R_TXT3wxntI/AAAAAAAAAEg/E3f7DFGxOTU/s400/shindigs.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5185005807396298450″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-size:78%;” 1- Scavenger Hunt; 2- Tickets to show; 3- Surprise Party; 4- The Game/spanbr /br /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;”br /So the descriptions of these are a little odd as you can see but I’ll do my best to explain. #1 is one of the ideas that I have not COMPLETELY done myself but I was at the end party. This was something my friend’s brother did for her birthday and it was insanely well thought out. He hid things in stores and in Churches and bars and created sudoku puzzles and she had a blast. This definitely falls under the category of “Not expensive but INCREDIBLY time consuming”. Also probably not for everyone but if you have an Indiana Jones or a Dan Brown fan on your hands- give it some thought. Oh and make sure to either have party and the end or the whole group come along. Don’t give them the answers though- no cheating! If you like the concept but don’t have the time check out a href=”http://watsonadventures.com/”Watson Adventures/a located in NYC, Boston, DC, Chicago, Philly, and LA. Also read on to #4 which might work too./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;”br /But we’ve got #2 to go over before that. #2 is probably the simplest idea but again when searching for something physically- we tend to over look the simple. Get him tickets to his favorite type of event. We have always enjoyed comedy shows so I went for some Dave Atell and Lewis Black tickets a couple of years ago but for you it could be a band he loves, tickets to a game, tickets to go see a live taping of a show (I’ve always meant to get us a href=”http://www.thedailyshow.com/tickets.jhtml”Daily Show/a, a href=”http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Tickets/”SNL and/or Conan O’Brien tickets/a but be forewarned- some of these rely on lotteries or stand by and are not guaranteed). And if you don’t live in driving distance to NYC- probably not for you either (Sorry! Don’t be too sad though, it’s probably been spring where you are for much longer). Some places to scour for tickets are a href=”http://www.ticketmaster.com/”Ticketmaster/a, a href=”http://www.craigslist.org/”Craigslist/a, and a href=”http://www.stubhub.com/”StubHub/a. I’m people have a much longer list of place so if you have a favorite spot to get the hardest to get tickets just let me know and I’ll update the list./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;”br /#3- Get someone a dark dank cavern? OH contraire! That dank cavern is filled with untold amounts of beer! Yes you DC residents might recognize it as a href=”http://www.lovethebeer.com/brickskeller-directions.html”Brickskeller/a, which happened to be where I had a surprise party for my husband a couple of years ago. Obviously this is best for a birthday party but maybe not. Maybe you’re really creative and use it for something else. (But if you are please let me know so we can all copy you!) At the time I didn’t know all of his friends as well as I do today so I enlisted the help of a girl he works with to handle the work crowd, our friend from college to handle the college crowd and one of his friends from home to handle the home crowd and whipped them into shape to try and get as many people as possible there. Friends of his came down from all areas to visit, fun was had by all and people who were just used to hearing the others names in passing got to meet. Sidenote if you plan this undertaking yourself- if you are accompanying the surprisee get someone to corral people who are waiting. We happen to walk in and run into two of his friends on a bar run (which is ridiculous b/c we had a waitress) who stopped and were like “Hey. Umm. Happy Birthday”/spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;”br /Ahhhh #4. The Game. This proves how ridiculous I can be. My husband like games. A big Deal or No Deal fan. (I actually won $20 at a superbowl party on his friend’s “home made” version on index cards- woohoo!). Sooooo the Game is the reason I started writing this post, only I didn’t know it yet. Valentine’s Day this year I was STUMPED what to do. I searched the blogs and articles and scoured gift sites and NADA. So I tried to think what he might need the most and at the time- he needed to get away. Somewhere there wasn’t phones ringing or a computer to do work on and the weekend after Valentine’s was a 3-day weekend this year. So now the question was where to go. There was a deal on a really nice hotel on travelzoo so that was an option but we’ve also always talked about going back to the town we went to college in and going to the places we used to eat and drink. But which trip to choose? Well it was his present so I decided I’d let him choose but decided to make it a bit more fun than that. I got two boxes from Target and some silly things that represented each trip (a lobster for a trip to the beach/ a keg cup for a trip to where we went to college are two examples) and drew a nice map on the lid of each and then a big 1 or 2 on the lids. The morning of Valentines Day I made a trail of Hershey’s Kisses to the boxes and said he could pick one, look inside and he’d then decide whether he wanted that trip— OR (Price is Right style) he could pass and he’d have to go with whatever was the in second box. He pick the first one (beach) and off we went. It’s a little tricky since I couldn’t book anything until he picked but it all turned out well in the end. We even got upgraded from our Travelzoo deal to a suite!/spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;”br /Ok. SO there you have it! Part 2. There’s still one more so until then… I have some Rachel Ray Papa al Pomodoro!/span
March 10, 2008 Comments Off
span style=”;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;” So as promised about a month ago, here are some gifts that I think are good for the hardest group to shop for: guys.br /br /Let me start out by saying that I’m kind of a present-giving nutjob. I always try to find the absolute perfect gift for people so much so that I kind of wish that birthdays were set up where once a year when you found something for someone you’d just gi/spanspan style=”;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;” ve it to them then and then on their actual birthday make them food. This is because I always find the “so-perfect-they-don’t-even-know-they-want-this-but-will-love-it” gift in March who someone whose birthday is in October. Or something like that. And it doesn’t make sense to me to get it in March and hold onto it b/c it may no longer be perfect in October or they may find it and buy it for themselves and then I suppose I’d have to find a receipt to return it. That doesn’t usually go over well.br //spanbr /span style=”;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;” But I digress… I think men are so hard to shop for because a) you can’t just buy them what you want like you can with a lot of girl friends or sisters and b) when they want something THEY BUY IT. No, “arg should I shouldn’t I?”, they just buy it. Doesn’t matter if it’s December first and you’ve been asking him what he wants for Christmas/Hannauka. He’ll buy it for himself. Le sigh.br //spanbr /span style=”;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;” So I feel like I’ve come up with some good ideas over the years which you can spin and make yours. Yay! I’m going to stick to things that I have actually bought over the years mostly for my husband (but also some things we got for his friend who was at one time our roommate and best man at our wedding.)br //spanbr /span style=”;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;” Starting off:/spanbr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R9hjfAixFgI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/t7ffD9S3kGE/s1600-h/you-buy.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 0px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R9hjfAixFgI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/t7ffD9S3kGE/s400/you-buy.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176997156035302914″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;” span style=”text-align: center;”1) t-shirts from a href=”http://www.threadless.com/”Threadless.com/a, 2) a href=”http://www.groominglounge.com/”Grooming Lounge/a Gift Certificate, 3) a href=”http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P193314amp;searchString=Sephora%20Brand%20Scent%20Sampler%20Gift%20Certificate%20For%20Him”Sephora/a a href=”http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P193314amp;searchString=Sephora%20Brand%20Scent%20Sampler%20Gift%20Certificate%20For%20Him” Scent Sampler Gift Certificate For Him/a, 4) Silk Boxers/spanbr /br /span style=”;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:85%;” br /While it’s kind of stereotypical to think that men hate shopping unless it’s for the new big screen tv or something, in my case, it’s totally true. Now I nearly got my husband a cashmere sweater for Valentine’s Day (there was such a sale at Macy’s!) my general feeling was “He’d like it but blah”. Threadless shirts on the other hand are fun and cool. I found Threadless when they mentioned it in a little sidebar in my college’s monthly magazine back in 2000 and I think between the two of us, my husband and I have roughly 20 Threadless shirts. The t-shirts are made from user submissions, voted on, and then printed on American Apparel shirts. If you think you’re not seeing anything on Threadless and you’re looking for funny shirts also check out a href=”http://www.glarkware.com/”glarkware.com/a, a href=”http://www.bustedtees.com/”bustedtees.com/a, and there are a slew of other that are all escaping me now.br /br /Number 2, The Grooming Lounge is from our days in DC (although they’ve apparently opened another store in Atlanta). They do, as the name implies, all sorts of male grooming. Hair, face, nails, skin, massages, all the things YOU’D want in a nice day spa EXCEPT the Grooming Lounge is all leather and wood and Old Boys Club rich looking.br /br /[Start Scene] In the midst of Christmas shoppers in a horribly narrow Boston area mall, the crowd parts to reveal a slightly bedraggled woman clutching a fistful of narrow paper strips. As she passes people she can be heard muttering “top paper is Lacoste, then Calvin Klein, then Lazzaro, ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss, Burberry, Lacoste, Calvin Klein, Ralph-NO NO STUPID STUPID! Calvin Klein, Lazzaro, Ralph Lauren, Oooh my head hurts. Lacoste, Calvin Klein, which one to pick, which one to pick? Lazzaro, Ralph Lauren, I liked Lacoste but maybe the Burberry. Wait was this Burberry Brit for Men or Burberry Touch for Men… AHHHHH” She fall to the ground in madness. [End Scene] Soooo needless to say the Sephora Scent Sampler for Men basically saved my sanity this Christmas. Not only because it saved me from all my little sheets of paper (though if you do go that route– here’s a hint– BRING A PEN not all of the colognes have pre-printed sheets at the department stores) but also because a fragrance smells different out of the bottle than it does once it reacts with your body chemistry.br /br /And lastly, silk boxers. Come on, they’re fun! I actually recommend the faux silk boxers that Target sells because how many guys that you know check the labels or – shock – hand wash some of their clothes?!br /br /Ok this has been about 5 times longer than I expected so stay tuned to my next installment of my gifts for guys and if it’s so super incredible dire that you get a present right this very minute, hey, take a deep breath then go check out a href=”http://thefuturemrsdarcy.blogspot.com/2007/12/gifts.html”my favorite online stores/a.br /br //span/span
December 17, 2007 Comments Off
span style=”font-size:85%;”span style=”font-family:lucida grande;”I’m working on the very un-fun task of taking my jpg of the website design and actually making it a functioning website. In the meantime ’tis the season for gifts so I thought I’d run down my favorite gift sites in case anyone is looking for a last minute holiday gift or a gift for your attendants./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;”To see what I got my attendants check out /spana style=”font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://community.theknot.com/cs/ks/user/page.aspx?username=kreinertsenamp;MsdVisit=1″my knottie bio./abr /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;”Now for my faves:/spanbr /br /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp0.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bjsI8AaKI/AAAAAAAAACo/iRHSTrgRadM/s1600-h/Picture+12.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp0.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bjsI8AaKI/AAAAAAAAACo/iRHSTrgRadM/s400/Picture+12.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145049971770288290″ border=”0″ //abr /a style=”font-weight: bold; font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://mightygoods.com/”Mighty Goods/aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;” – This is my favorite site to try and find different and interesting things for people. Like /spana style=”font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://www.redenvelope.com/”Red Envelope/aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;” (another good site) you can search by occasion or recipient but I find Red Envelope where tends to be all “jewelry and home goods for women” and “golfing, booze, and grilling for men” Mighty Goods seems to have more rounded choices./spanbr /br /br /br /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bga48AaDI/AAAAAAAAABw/abgVfWJOTko/s1600-h/Picture+13.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bga48AaDI/AAAAAAAAABw/abgVfWJOTko/s400/Picture+13.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145046376882661426″ border=”0″ //abr /a style=”font-weight: bold; font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://charlesandmarie.com/index.php”Charles and Marie/aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;”- This kind of has crazy stuff and a lot of it is out of my price range but if you have someone on your list that is too cool for school this is a great place to start looking.br /br /br /br //spana style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp1.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgbY8AaEI/AAAAAAAAAB4/oBKpGqIZ4ic/s1600-h/Picture+14.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp1.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgbY8AaEI/AAAAAAAAAB4/oBKpGqIZ4ic/s400/Picture+14.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145046385472596034″ border=”0″ //aa style=”font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://greenergrassdesign.com/”Greener Grass Design/aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;”- To be honest I completely forgot about these guys until I went looking in my “gifts” tag on delicious to write this entry BUT possibly found a gift for my secret santa person (my husband’s brother-in-law- could I have picked a harder person to buy for for the first year we’re spending xmas together?!!)/spanbr /br /br /br /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgb48AaFI/AAAAAAAAACA/W4YR2a8IqZE/s1600-h/Picture+15.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgb48AaFI/AAAAAAAAACA/W4YR2a8IqZE/s400/Picture+15.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145046394062530642″ border=”0″ //abr /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://www.chiasso.com/”Chiasso/aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;”- I stumbled upon this site years ago while searching for something to get my very design oriented grandmother. It’s similar to the others with very modern/rethought items./spanbr /br /br /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp0.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgcI8AaGI/AAAAAAAAACI/zrtuL-CeKy0/s1600-h/Picture+16.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp0.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgcI8AaGI/AAAAAAAAACI/zrtuL-CeKy0/s400/Picture+16.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145046398357497954″ border=”0″ //abr /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;”a href=”http://www.knockknock.biz/home.php”Knock Knock/a- Again what would I do without my delicious tags? I must have found this awhile ago and marked it and note to self: this site is awesome- don’t forget it anymore! If I haven’t mentioned how much I love snarky things and (even more) well designed snarky things then… umm… I just did. WARNING: you may end up buying things for yourself instead of others. Like a “wheel o wisdom”, or “Big Ups post its”/spanbr /br /br /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bguo8AaHI/AAAAAAAAACQ/sby3ENulMgI/s1600-h/Picture+17.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bguo8AaHI/AAAAAAAAACQ/sby3ENulMgI/s400/Picture+17.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145046716185077874″ border=”0″ //aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;”a href=”http://www.day-lab.com/”Day-Lab/a- has cool gifts for girls from fun jewelry and bags to instant sea monkeys aaaaand…./spanbr /br /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgu48AaII/AAAAAAAAACY/FoPiDdZ-BkM/s1600-h/Picture+18.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp3.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgu48AaII/AAAAAAAAACY/FoPiDdZ-BkM/s400/Picture+18.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145046720480045186″ border=”0″ //abr /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://www.night-lab.com/”Night-Lab/aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;”- has cool gifts for boys like hipster shirts, books about brothels in Nevada, graphic novels and comic books./spanbr /br /br /a style=”font-family: lucida grande;” onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://bp0.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgvI8AaJI/AAAAAAAAACg/nx553WeXlXw/s1600-h/Picture+19.png”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;” src=”http://bp0.blogger.com/_H8Z0minezFU/R2bgvI8AaJI/AAAAAAAAACg/nx553WeXlXw/s400/Picture+19.png” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145046724775012498″ border=”0″ //aa style=”font-family: lucida grande;” href=”http://www.curiosityshoppeonline.com/”Curiosity Shoppe/aspan style=”font-family:lucida grande;”- has design-y, retro-y, crafty stuff which I’m realizing, after putting together this list, is what I’m all about. I don’t want anyone to say “Oh my sister got this for xmas too!” when someone opens my gift. Also a lot of the things on this list fall outside of the typical scope of gifts which gives you an opportunity to find something that is even more tailored to your recipient./spanbr /br /span style=”font-family:lucida grande;”Now, I really need to go through these myself and find a good husband’s brother in law gift for under $25. 
/span/span
